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The University of Chicago 


FOUNDED BY JOHN D, ROCKEFELLER 





THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


A DISSERTATION 


SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN 
CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 


(DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY) 


BY 


ALLAN HOBEN 


CHICAGO 
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The University of Chicago 


FOUNDED BY JOHN D, ROCKEFELLER 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


A DISSERTATION 


SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN 
CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 


(DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY) 


BY 


ALLAN HOBEN 
Be Oe Bet! 


CHICAGO 
1905 





SS bade —— 
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 


PREFACE. 


THis work is purely an historical essay. Taking the story of the 
Virgin Birth as found in the New Testament, it aims to trace the his- 
tory of its interpretation and use throughout the ante-Nicene period. 
The bearing of the study upon the historical criticism of the New Tes- 
tament and theology proper is not discussed. 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS, 


Ife PAGE 
THE NEw TESTAMENT - - . - - - - - ee) 
The Virgin Birth has a double attestation. The relation of the 
canonical story to the Gospel of James. Interpretation of the 
canonical accounts. 
Le 
THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS - - - - - . - ay 
Ignatius; Aristides; Justin Martyr; Tatian; Melito; Irenzus; Ter- 
tullian; Clement of Alexandria; Origen; Hippolytus; Cyprian ; 
Novatian; Malchion; Archelaus ; Arnobius ; Lactantius ; Methodius ; 
Victorinus ; Peter of Alexandria; Alexander of Alexandria ; Conclu- 
sion. 
Ill. 
THE NEw TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA - - - - - - - 81 
Differentiated from the New Testament. Their theological purpose. 
Old Testament models. 
INDEX - - - - - - : - - - - - 86 


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THE VIRGIN BIRTH. 


I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


THIS essay aims to trace the history and use of the story of the 
virgin birth of Jesus in the ante-Nicene Christian literature. In doing 
this, special attention is paid to the patristic field, which has not hitherto 
been thoroughly investigated with such a purpose in view. What is 
here offered on the New Testament material is introductory to the 
main body of the essay, and, as a prerequisite to tracing the use and 
effects of the New Testament stories in the subsequent Christian litera- 
ture, aims to determine whether these narratives in reality represent a 
double or only a single attestation of the virgin birth, and also to 
ascertain what is their exact meaning.* 

The question whether the account of the virgin birth has in the 
New Testament a single or a double attestation is, broadly speaking, 
the question of the common origin or independence of the infancy 
sections of Matthew and Luke. Resch?’ holds that Matthew and Luke 
used a pre-canonical child history, which had been translated from 
Hebrew into Greek, and that, if we had that history, it would be a har- 
mony of the infancy stories of the first and third gospels. Conrady? 
thinks that the protevangelium of James is that pre-canonical source 
which both Matthew and Luke used, and that, moreover, Luke had 
access to Matthew’s account. Whether the infancy stories are more 
independent than these theories would imply can be ascertained on 
by a comparative examination of the material. 

The genealogies, Matt. 1:1-17 and Luke 3: 23-38, may be first 
considered in such a comparison. ‘The generations prior to Abraham 
are peculiar to Luke, and, while favoring the independence of the two 
tables, are probably more significant as indicating Luke’s understanding 
of the virgin birth, as will be pointed out later. Between Abraham 
and David the two tables, having access to the Old Testament material, 

*The pseudonymous and fictitious material which falls within the ante-Nicene 
period and is usually included under the title of the New Testament apocrypha will 


be briefly treated in an appendix, for the purpose of supplementing the study of the 
ante-Nicene Fathers. 


2 Kindheitsevangelium nach Lucas und Matthaeus. 
3 Die Quelle der kanonischen Kindhettsgeschichte Jesu. 
9) 9 


10 _ HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIO STUDIES 


are in harmony, but between David and Joseph, where one would 
expect them to be precise in proving the Davidic descent of Jesus, they 
are, with the possible exception of two names,‘ wholly at variance. 
Thus the genealogical tables as a whole make against the theory of a 
common source.*> The explanation that Luke gives the genealogy of 
Mary is not substantiated or adequate. 

Continuing this comparison, the question of the common depend- 
ence or the interdependence of the infancy sections can be better 
appreciated, perhaps, by a tabulation showing the material in either 
account. 


MATTHEW. LUKE. 
Birth of John the Baptist 
promised, I: 5-25 
Annunciation to Mary, I : 20-38 
Annunciation to Joseph, 1: 18-25 


Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, 1: 39-56 
Birth of John the Baptist, 1:57-80 


Birth of Jesus, 2:1-7 
The angels and the shepherds, 2 : 8—20 
The circumcision, 2227 
Presentation in the temple, 2: 22-39 
The magi, 2:1I-12 
Flight into Egypt and return 
to Nazareth, 2: 13-23 
Childhood at Nazareth, 2:23 Childhood at Nazareth, 2:39, 40 


Incident in the temple, 2:41-50 
Eighteen years at Nazareth, 2:51, 52 


It will be seen from the foregoing that Matthew and Luke are in 
agreement as to the birth-place, the parents’ names, a residence in 
Nazareth after the birth, the Davidic descent, and the virgin birth. 
But all of these facts, except the last, are derivable from the gospels 
proper, or, as in the case of the Bethlehem birth, from such informa- 
tion as may easily be supposed to have been common Christian tradi- 


4 Shealtiel and Jerubbabel, Matt. 1:12; Luke 3: 27. 

5In connection with Matt. 1: 16 it should be brought to notice that, although all 
the Greek uncials and nearly all the minuscules have “ Joseph the husband of Mary, 
of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ,” the Curetonian Syriac, the Armenian, 
two Greek minuscules (346 and 556), and most of the old Latin versions have, 
“Joseph to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed begat Jesus who is called Christ,” 
while the Sinaitic Syriac has, ‘“‘ And Joseph to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed 
begat Jesus Christ.” The reading of the MS. recently discovered at Oxyrhynchus 
agrees with the Greek uncials. 


10 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 11 


tion (John 7:42).° On the other hand, Matthew represents Bethlehem 
as the home of Joseph and Mary prior to their flight into Egypt, while 
Luke knows of no home for the sacred family except that of Nazareth, 
and is silent concerning the annunciation to Joseph, thestar, the magi, 
the slaughter of the innocents, and the flight into Egypt. Matthew 
omits completely the story of John the Baptist, thus causing his gospel 
proper to begin with needless abruptness, were he in possession of 
the source used by Luke. Moreover, Matthew says nothing of the 
annunciation to Mary, or of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth; nothing of the 
angels and the shepherds, the circumcision, the presentation in 
the temple, the incident in the temple at the age of twelve, and the 
youth spent in Nazareth. 

Now, if we take a section from the gospel where Matthew and Luke 
are evidently dependent upon their common source, Mark, we can the 
better determine whether a similar dependence exists here. Taking 
the record of the second northern~ journey for retirement, beginning 
with Matt. 16:13 and Luke g: 18, the order of events is as follows: 


MATTHEW. LUKE. 

I. Peter’s confession - - - - 16:13-20 g: 18-21 
2. Death and resurrection foretold - 21-28 22-27 
3. Transfiguration - - - - ae SER ISEZ 28-36 
4. The demoniac boy - - - - 14-207 37-434 
5. Death and resurrection again foretold - oy Va Xe 436-45 
6. The shekel in the fish’s mouth - - 24-27 (Matthzan additionto 

common source) 
7. Discourse on humility and forgiveness - chap. 18 46-50 


Comparing the substantial nature of this harmony of events with 
the comparative relation of events in the infancy sections, the evidence 
is against a common source in the latter case. 

Having made this survey, it may be well to take up the two accounts 
of the virgin birth in order to ascertain whether there is evidence of a 
common source in this particular part of the infancy sections. This 
involves a comparison of Matt. 1 : 18-25 with Luke 1 : 26-38 and 2:6, 7; 
and, at the same time, of both with the parallel material of the gospel 
of Tames, in order to ascertain the value of the theory which makes it 
the common source of the canonical stories. 

6 This passage also indicates that the Bethlehem birth was not known in the life- 
time of Jesus, but that it was a commonly accepted fact in the apostolic age. On the 


other hand, one must admit the possibility that the information presented in John 
7:42 may be derived from the infancy story itself. 


7 Vs, 21 expunged as an interpolation. 


11 


12 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


Matthew and Luke are in harmony in their statement of the chief 
fact, that Mary was Joseph’s betrothed, and prior to any sexual 
intercourse on their part conceived a son by the Spirit of God, and 
that such a conception was predictive of the child’s future greatness. 
But in Luke the angel who announces this wonderful fact and names 
the unborn child is sent to Mary in Nazareth, while in Matthew the 
angel comes in a dream to Joseph, presumably in Bethlehem. The 
particular task of the one to be born is represented in Luke as ruling 
on the throne of David forever, and in Matthew as saving his people 
from their sins. In Luke his manner of birth warrants the epithet 
“God’s Son,” and in Matthew, “Immanuel.” 

The limits of the present article do not permit the insertion of the 
Greek text of these three accounts in such a way as to make clear all 
corresponding material, but from such an examination we are con- 
vinced that Conrady’s thesis isuntenable. The following extract from 
the gospel of James may be compared with the Lucan and Matthzan 
accounts, the verbal correspondence to Luke being roughly designated 
by italics, that to Matthew by capitals, and that to both by spaced 
type: 

11. And she took the pitcher and went out to fill it with water. And 
behold a voice saying: az/, thou who hast received grace; the Lord is with 
thee, blessed art thou among women (Luke 1: 42). And she looked around 
on the right hand and on the left to see whence this voice came. And she 
went away trembling to her house, and put down the pitcher ; and taking the 
purple she sat down on her seat and drew it out. Aszd behold, an angel of 
the Lord stood before her, saying : Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor 
before the Lord of all, avd thou shalt conceive according to his word. And 
she hearing reasoned with herself, saying : Shall I conceive by the Lord, the 
living God? and shall I bring forth as every woman brings forth ? (Luke 
1:34). And the angel of the Lord said: Not so, Mary: for the power of the 
Lord shall overshadow thee: wherefore also that holy thing that shall be born 
of thee shall be called the son of the Most High. And thou shalt call 
his name Jesus, FOR HE SHALL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM 
THEIR SINS. And Mary said: Behold the servant of the Lord before his 
face; let it be unto me according to thy word. 

13. And she was in her sixth month; and behold, JOSEPH came back 
from his building, and entering into his house he DISCOVERED that she was 
big WITH CHILD. And he smote his face and threw himself upon the 
ground upon the sackcloth, and wept bitterly, saying: With what face shall 
I look upon the Lord my God, and what prayer shall I make about this 
maiden? because I received her a virgin out of the temple of the Lord, and 
I have not watched over her. Who is it that has hunted me (her) down? 

12 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 13 


Who has done this evil thing in my house and has defiled the virgin? Has 
not the history of Adam been repeated in me? For just as Adam was in the 
hour of his singing praise, and the serpent came and found Eve alone and 
completely deceived her, so it has happened to me also. And Joseph stood 
up from the sackcloth and called Mary and said unto her: Oh, thou who 
hast been cared for by God, why hast thou done this and forgotten the Lord 
thy God? Why hast thou brought low thy soul, thou who wast brought up 
in the holy of holies and that didst receive food from the hand of an angel? 
And she wept bitterly, saying: I am innocent, and have known no man. 
And Joseph said to her: Whence then is that which is inthy womb? And 
she said: As the Lord my God liveth, I do not know whence it is to me. 

14. And Joseph was greatly afraid, and retired from her, and considered 
what he should do in regard to her. And Joseph said: If I conceal her sin, 
I find myself fighting against the law of the Lord; and if I expose her to the 
sons of Israel, I am afraid lest that which is in her be from an angel, and I 
shall be found giving up innocent blood to the doom of death. What then 
shall I do with her? I will put her away from me secretly. (Matt. 1: 19.) 
And night came upon him; and BEHOLD, AN ANGEL OF THE LORD 
APPEARS TO HIM IN A DREAM, SAYING: BE NOT AFRAID for 
this maiden, FOR THAT WHICH IS IN HER IS OF THE HOLY 
SPIRIT, AND SHE SHALL BRING FORTH A SON, and thou shalt 
call his name Jesus, FOR HE SHALL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM 
THEIR SINS. AND JOSEPH AROSE FROM SLEEP and glorified the 
God of Israel who had given him this grace ; and he kept her..... 

1g. And I said: I am seeking a Hebrew midwife. And she answered 
and said unto me: Art thou of Israel ? And I said unto her: Yes. And she 
said: And who is it that is bringing forth in the cave?* AndI said: A 
woman betrothed to me. And she said to me: Is she not thy wife? AndI 
said to her: It is Mary who was reared in the temple of the Lord, and I 
obtained her by lot as my wife. And yet she is not my wife, but has con- 
ceived OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. (Matt. 1:18, 25.) And the midwife said 
to him: Is this true? And Joseph said to her: Come and see. And the 
midwife went away with him. And they stood in the place of the cave, and 
behold, a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said : 
My soul has been magnified this day, because mine eyes have seen strange 
things — because salvation has been brought forth to Israel. (Luke 1: 46, 
68 ff.) And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave and a great 
light shone in the cave so that the eyes could not bear it. And ina little 
that light gradually decreased until the infant appeared and went and took 
the breast from his mother Mary. And the midwife cried out and said: 


8 The gospel of James represents this cave as being within three miles of Bethle- 
hem. 


9 Contrast Luke 2:6, 7. 
13 


14 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


This is a great day to me because I have seen this strange sight. And the 
midwife went forth out of the cave and Salome met her. And she said 
to her: Salome, Salome, I have a strange sight to relate to thee: A virgin 
has brought forth—a thing which her nature admits not of. Then said 
Salome: As the Lord my God liveth, unless I thrust in my finger and search 
the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth. 

20. And the midwife went in and said to Mary: Show thyself, for no 
small controversy has arisen about thee. And Salome put in her finger and 
cried out and said: Woe is me for mine iniquity and mine unbelief, because 
I have tempted the living God; and behold my hand is dropping off as if 
burned by fire. 

Anyone who is acquainted with the story-making habit, the extrava- 
gant characteristics of the apocryphal literature as a whole, or even 
with the tendency in New Testament interpolation, cannot hold 
Matthew and Luke to be deductions from this gospel of James. The 
gospel of James seems rather to be the fanciful working out of the 
canonical stories ; and, while it is difficult to account for the placing 
of the birth in a cave near Bethlehem, this may be a creation of fancy, 
the better to set off the miraculous illumination at the time of birth; 
or the invention may have been favored by the Septuagint translation 
of-isa.°33'::16.° 

Contrast with the above extract such samples of verbal dependence™ 
as Matt. 3:7-10 and Luke 3:7-9, or Matt. 12:43-45 and Luke 
11: 24-26; or take the threefold account of Jesus’ encounter with the 
Pharisees,” Matt. 21 : 23-27, Luke 20: 1-8, derived from Mark 11:27-— 
33, and judge whether there is sufficient ground in the canonical 
stories of the virgin birth for supposing them to be dependent upon 
each other or upon the prolix vulgarity of the gospel of James. Indeed, 
the instances cited, together with such passages as Mark 12: 13-27, 
13:5-9, and parallels, serve to indicate the true nature of verbal 
dependence, and, taken with the comparison of the narratives as a 
whole, to warrant the conclusion that where the virgin-birth story first 
appears it is attested by two witnesses which betray no certain sign of 
dependence of one upon the other or of both upon a common source. 

20See WESTCOTT, Canon of the New Testament, p. 102, note 7. 


See Huck, Synopse der drei ersten Evangelien, p. 17, where out of the 147 words 
composing the two accounts 130 are identical and arranged in the same order. For 
the second example see HUCK, p. 54, where out of the 126 words of the two accounts 
104 are identical and in the same order. Also RUSHBROOK, Symofticon, pp. 136, 159. 

72 See Huck, pp. 118 ff., where of some 356 words composing the three accounts 
about 200 are identical and in the same order. See also RUSHBROOK, Synofticon, 
p: 81. 


14 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 15 


It is now necessary, before proceeding to trace the influence of the 
narratives of the virgin birth on the subsequent Christian literature, to 
get as clear an idea as possible of the meaning of the story in the 
earliest forms preserved to us. Matthew’s thought seems to be that the 
wonder-working Spirit of God, exclusive of human agency, caused 
Mary to conceive ; that, by reason of this fact, she was innocent of any 
wrong such as that the suspicion of which had troubled Joseph; and 
that at the same time such a birth, being in accord with the Immanuel 
prophecy, marked the child to be born as the Messiah, the Savior of 
his people, as the one spoken of in Isa., chaps. 7 and 8, to be the 
deliverer of his nation in the impending war. Thus the application 
of the prophetic and symbolic expression ‘“ Immanuel” was not for the 
purpose of designating the nature of the child, but rather his work, 
which was to be national and messianic. The result of the nation’s 
sins was always the withdrawal of God; but the Messiah would lead 
them in righteousness and save them from that abandoning by God 
which was at the same time the result of their sins and the cause of 
their impotence and subjection. The term “Immanuel,” then, is the 
prophetic and symbolic designation for Savior; but that it soon came 
to be used as designating the divine nature of Christ will appear from 
the study of the patristic literature. 

The meaning of Luke’s account of the virgin birth is not so clear, 
perhaps, but, like Matthew’s, is destitute of any attempt to explain the 
divine nature of Jesus upon the basis that God, and not a human 
father, was his begetter. In reply to Mary’s question (1 : 34), the angel 
says: ‘“ Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and power of Highest shall 
overshadow thee, therefore also the begotten thing shall be called holy, 
Son of God.” In other words, the pure Spirit of God will cause Mary 
to conceive miraculously, and thus, in contrast to the polluted offspring 
of any human begetter, who would be a sinful descendant of Adam, 
the child shall be gure as the begetting Spirit is pure. This is one 
element in the angel’s annunciation — the purity of the child through 
the action of the Holy Spirit and the breaking of the line of sinful 
Adam’s descent. The other is that the creative power of God is to act 
directly in this creation, as it did in that of Adam, the first man, who 
because of his direct creation by God is called God’s son (cf. 3: 38, 
“the son of Adam, the son of God’’). In like manner shall this one, 
whose holiness is secured by the breaking of the sinful Adamic descent, 
be termed Son of God because directly created by divine power. 

This is undoubtedly the daszs for the use of the term “ Son of God” 

15 


16 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIO STUDIES 


in this passage; but has the term no larger content than that which 
applies equally to Adam? There are two other possibilities : first, that it 
is equivalent to “‘ Messiah ;” and, second, that it designates moral like- 
ness to God. In support of the former contention it can be pointed 
out that this passage in Luke is clearly messianic, as is seen in vss. 32 
and 33, and also in the psalms interspersed throughout the narrative. 
Moreover, the probable use of the term “Son of God”’ as a messianic 
title can be appealed to in Matt. 16: 16 (but not in Mark 3:11; 5:7; 
15:39; nor in Luke 3:22; 4:3,9; 9:35). For the view that it 
designates moral likeness to God it can be shown that the thought is 
thus made parallel to the preceding thought of purity and is brought 
into harmony with the Jewish conception of the original purity of 
Adam, avoiding at the same time a use of the term ‘Son of God” which 
cannot with certainty be attributed to any part of the New Testament 
except its latest elements. 

Adopting any one of these three possible interpretations, however, 
there is in the passage no explanation of the divine nature of Jesus on 
the basis of divine parentage, but at most only a statement and partial 
explanation of his purity (in Matthew more specifically an exoneration 
of the purity of Mary’s conception, and in Luke of the purity of Jesus 
from the hereditary Adamic sin), and a prophecy of his greatness as 
the theocratic representative. Both accounts have the national mes- 
sianic coloring, but in neither of them is there represented an incar- 
nation of a pre-existent being, such as is set forth in the prologue 
to John’s gospel. The natural deductions made from the terms 
“Tmmanuel” and “Son of God” by the subsequent Christian litera- 
ture, and the embarrassing attempts to harmonize the synoptists with 
the prologue of the fourth gospel, will be pointed out in the next 
section. 

Passing from the infancy sections, we find no use of them (unless 
possibly John 7:42) or of the virgin birth prior to Ignatius, in the 
second decade of the second century. The narrative of the virgin 
birth, if in existence, made no impression upon the exponents of 
Christianity prior to the formation and crystallization of the preaching 
gospel, or, indeed, within the period in which the New Testament 
books — most of them, at least— arose. There is no trace of it in 
Peter’s preaching, as preserved to us; and Paul, though it would seem 
that he could have made occasional good use of the teaching,*® pre- 
serves a significant silence ; Matthew’s gospel, from 3:1 on, depending 

32. g., 1 Cor. 15:45 ff.; 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 5:12 ff.; 8:3; Phil.2:6 ff; ef al. 

16 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 17 


upon Mark, is also silent ; and that portion of the gospel of Luke 
which, as we judge from 1:2 and Acts 1: 21, 22, constituted for him 
the gospel proper, viz., that which began, like Mark, with the public 
ministry of Jesus as inaugurated by John the Baptist, is likewise desti- 
tute of any trace of the virgin-birth story. The gospel of John is also 
silent.* What these facts signify as to the source of the story and the 
time of its rise is not the task of this essay, which passes to consider 
the history of the thought as traceable in the patristic literature. 


Il. THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS. 


In entering upon a study of the ante-Nicene Fathers in their treat- 
ment of the virgin birth, we are interested to know what sources they 
used, what was the influence of extra-canonical sources upon their 
views, and the time when this influence becomes discoverable. It is 
also desirable to ascertain what sources the so-called heretical teachers 
and writers used, and what various theories of the virgin birth were 
advanced by them; and also to determine what the Fathers understood 
the virgin birth to mean, and what theological purpose they made it 
serve. With a view to answering these questions, and conscious of the 
fact that in the absence of any New Testament interpretation, save the 
meager hints of the infancy sections themselves, the interpretation of 
the Fathers became and remained the interpretation of the church at 
large, the study of this vast and not always interesting field is under- 
taken. 

I. IcNatius, second bishop of Antioch,* martyred between 107 and 
117 A.D., is the first and sole apostolic Father to leave us any material 
on the miraculous generation of Jesus. Not only so, but all the apos- 
tolic Fathers, save Ignatius and Aristides, in the Syriac version of his 
Apology, maintain a uniform and notable silence concerning the story 
of the birth and infancy of Jesus. In Clement of Rome, Polycarp, 
Barnabas, the Didaché, the Epistle to Diognetus, and the Shepherd of 
Hermas we look in vain for any reference either to the miraculous 
conception itself or to the infancy story of which the miraculous con- 
ception was the most striking feature. 

It is true that in Clement, Zfzst/es, 1 : 32, there is an obscure refer- 
ence to the descent of Jesus Christ from Jacob (?) according to the 


™ That the gosfe/ narratives are quite oblivious to the fact of the virgin birth 
is most obvious in such passages as Matt. 13: 54-58= Mark 6:1-6; Luke 4:22; 
John 1:45; 6:42; 7:5, 27; while at the same time the infancy section itself does not 
present an apparently uniform statement, Luke 2: 33, 41, 43, 48. 

SEUSEBIUS, Church History, Books III, XXII, and XXXVI. 


17 


18 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


flesh, but the obscurity of the passage and its probable derivation from 
Rom. 9:5 leave the writings of Clement destitute of any reference to 
the infancy sections. Moreover, it is not as if the apostolic Fathers had 
no occasion to use the story of the virgin birth of Jesus; for Polycarp 
in his Epistle, chap. 7, quotes 1 John 4: 3, “ Whosoever does not con- 
fess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is Anti-Christ,” and in chap. 
12 he maintains that Jesus is the Son of God; yet in both these 
places, where it would be natural and in keeping with the custom of 
so many of the ante-Nicene writers to refer to the infancy story, he is 
silent. 

Likewise in Barnabas, chap. 6, while there is a reference to the fact and 
purpose of the incarnation, a similar silence is maintained. ‘The Son 
of God therefore came in the flesh with this view, that he might bring to 
a head the sum of their sins who had persecuted his (their) prophets 
to the death.” The same is true of Diognetus, chap. 7, where there 
is a statement of how and for what purpose God sent his Son, and in 
chaps. 10 and 11, where John’s doctrine of the Word and mention 
of the only-begotten Son appear, but without reference to the infancy 
story. The Shepherd has no reference to Matthew’s gospel prior to 
the Sermon on the Mount, and none to Luke’s prior to the eleventh 
chapter. Neither has the Didaché any reference to Matthew prior to 
chap. 5, or to Luke prior to chap. 6. Ignatius has nothing to 
say about gospels, but mentions only the gospel which is an account 
of Jesus Christ, whom he accepts in place of all that is ancient and 
authoritative (Phz/ad., chap. 8), and which, with one exception (Rom., 
chap. 7, referring to John 6: 51), seems to coincide with the gospel as we 
have it in Matthew. 

The Ignatian controversy,” extending from 1495 to the present 
time, has succeeded in thoroughly discrediting the longer Greek recen- 
sion with the eight additional epistles, including the three in Latin. 
It has also pointed toward the conclusion that the Syriac version of the 
epistles to Polycarp, Ephesians, and Romans is but an imperfect 
series of extracts from the shorter Greek form of the seven usually 
accepted epistles ; and that the genuineness of this shorter Greek form 
itself is not in every respect beyond question. The free tampering with 
the text which makes against the high valuation of the later Fathers as 
textual evidence, necessarily discounts to some degree the patristic 


%LIGHTFOOT, Zhe Apostolic Fathers, S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp, Vol. 1, pp- 
315-414; THEOposIus ZAHN, J/gnatius von Antiochien. For bibliography see 
ScHaFPr, History of Christian Church, Vol. Il, pp. 652, 653. 


18 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 19 


writings which deal with the supernatural birth. But to just what 
degree is difficult to ascertain. In the shorter Greek version, however, 
Ignatius awakens little or no suspicion of reflecting the thought of 
a later time; he rather exhibits the pre-theological naiveté natural to 
his time and his teaching, if he were a disciple of Paul or Peter or 
John. His reference to the supernatural birth of Christ is that of 
unquestioning and unphilosophic statement. In Zph/., chap. 7 (I, 
52),” he says that Jesus Christ is “of flesh and of spirit, generate and 
ingenerate—(son) both of Mary and of God.”* In chap. 18 (I, 57) 
he says: “‘ For our God,” Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb 
by Mary, according to a dispensation of God, of the seed of David, 
but also of the Holy Spirit ;”*° and in chap. 19 (I, 57): ‘And hidden 
from the prince of this world were the virginity of Mary and her child- 
bearing.” In the same chapter the incarnation is regarded as “‘ God 
himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal 
life,” and in chap. 20 the manner of Christ’s generation is taken to 
explain his being Son of man and Son of God.* In Smyrn., chap. 
t (I, 86), there is perhaps as full a statement as any: “He was 
truly of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the Son of God 
according to the will and power of God. He was truly born of a vir- 
gin, was baptized by John, in order that all righteousness might be ful- 
filled by him.” 

From Magnesians, chap. 11, we learn that the birth, passion, and res- 


7 The citations in parentheses refer to the American reprint of the Edinburgh edi- 
tion of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, revised by A. C. Coxe, D.D. New York: Scribner, 
1899. 

IGNATIUS, Ephesians, VII, 2: Els iarpdés éoriv capkixds Te kal mvevparikds, yevyn- 
Tos kal dyévynros, év capkt yevbuevos Oeds, év Oavdrw fwh adnOwh, kal ék Maplas xal éx 
Geoo. The longer version amplifies this, quoting, “‘ For the Word was made flesh.” 

See also zbid., 20, and Zrai/.,9. The longer version amplifies this, quoting 
part of the Immanuel prophecy of Isa. 7:14. 

* IGNATIUS, Ephesians, XVIII, 2: ‘O yap beds 7udv *Inoots 6 Xpicrds exvopophOn 
tmrd Maplas kar’ olkovoulay Oeod éx omépuaros wev AaBld, rvevparos 5é aylov: 

2t [bid., XIX, 1: Kat €kadev rdv &pxovra Tod aldvos rovrov % mapbevla Maplas Kat d 
ToKeTos aUT7S K. T. r. 

2 Tbid., XIX, 3: Oeod dvOpwrlyws pavepovpévov els kawwdrnra didlov twijs* 

23 [bid., XX, 2: év Inood Xpwr@, TH ward cdpxa éx yévovs AaBl5, r@G vig dvOpdrov 
kal vig Beod x. T. d. 


24 IGNATIUS, Smyrn.,1: GdnOds bvra éx yévous AaBlS xara odpxa, vidy Beod xara 
OAnua Kal Sivayv Geod yeyevnuévovy ddnOGs éx mwapGévov, BeBawtiocuevovy bd "Iwdyvov 
Wa wrAnpwOD waca Sixavoctvy bm’ adbrod: 


19 


20 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


urrection constitute a trio of vital items in the Christian faith ; and an 
odd passage in Z7ra//., chap. 9, speaks of “ Jesus Christ who was from 
the race of David, who was the son of Mary.’ 

From the spurious material one may learn something of the 
trend and extent which the more inventive Christian literature soon 
assumed in order to combat Doceticism, Patripassianism, and various 
forms of the Gnostic heresy. From the material cited and quoted 
above at least the outstanding features of Ignatius’s belief touching 
the virgin birth may be ascertained. He believed (1) that Christ 
was conceived in the womb of Mary; (2) that part of him was 
composed of flesh and part of spirit ; (3) the former generate, the latter 
ingenerate; (4) the former derived of Mary, the latter of God; (5) that 
he was of Davidic descent; (6) that his mother was a virgin ; and (7) 
that the fact of her as a virgin bearing a child was, with some other 
essential Christian truths, hidden from the prince of this world. 

It will be seen that, while this statement of ‘the matter is unphilo- 
sophical, it is nevertheless not so simple as that contained in Matt. 
1: 18-25 and Luke 1: 26-38. There the thought is that the Spirit or 
Power of God coming upon Mary causes her to conceive directly and 
apart from any agency; and, while it is true that Luke 1: 35 points out 
a consequent characteristic of the son to be born, it by no means goes 
so far as to affirm the dual nature of Christ upon the basis of the 
announced miraculous conception. 

In concluding this study of Ignatius, it is important to point out 
(1) what are his sources, (2) what was his understanding of them, and 
(3) what increment he makes to the study; and this order of summary 
will be adhered to in the case of each writer with whom we have to deal. 

1. In so far as Ignatius reproduces or uses the story of the virgin 
birth or of the infancy, he shows no knowledge of any events or facts 
beyond those contained in the canonical gospels. Here, as uniformly 
in his writings, the facts are accounted for by his use of a gospel cor- 
responding to our Matthew, unless he also reflects, as shall be pointed 
out, something of the influence of the Johannine prologue. His 
emphasis upon the star in £4., chap. 19, is only a rhetorical adorn- 
ment of what is in the Matthzan source. 

2. It is very clear that Ignatius makes the dual parentage the basis 
of the dual nature of Jesus; and it is almost as clear that he predicates 
pre-existence for the divine element in the nature of Jesus. His 
representation of the matter is not thoroughly uniform, however, for 

25 IGNATIUS, Zrall., 1X: Tod éx yévous AaBls, rod éx Maplas. 

20 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 21 


in Z£ph., chap. 18 (I, 57), he seems to represent the creation of a 
new being, as do Matthew and Luke, while over against this must be 
placed the thought of Zp., chap. 7 (I, 52) and chap. 19 (1, 57), where 
the idea of the divine and increate one being manifested in human 
form argues some sort of a pre-existence doctrine, based possibly upon 
the teaching of the fourth gospel. 

3. This very hint of the presence and influence of teaching similar 
to that of John’s prologue, and Ignatius’s rather artless and unstudied 
statement of it in a way which modifies the synoptic accounts of the 
virgin birth, constitute a new element in the study, and one which is 
no less important than his advance upon the infancy sections them- 
selves, when he makes the dual nature of Jesus dependent upon his 
dual parentage. Ignatius also gives evidence of an incipient apolo- 
getic or polemic cast in such a passage as Smyrn., chap. 4, where he 
cuts the ground from under those who would say aught against the 
peculiar manner of Jesus’ birth and similarly vital doctrines of 
Christianity, by saying virtually that these matters have been hidden 
from Satan, and consequently from them, his followers. Also in 
Trall., chap. 9, his emphasis upon the fact* that Jesus Christ “was 
truly born and did eat and drink” indicates the unwelcomed existence 
of some form of Docetic doctrine. 

II. ArisTIDES (Afology presented to Cesar Titus Hadrianus 
Antoninus, 138 A. D., or shortly thereafter). The statement in the 
previous section that, with the exception of Ignatius, the apostolic 
Fathers preserve a uniform silence regarding the virgin birth hardly 
needed the qualification there given. In the second chapter of the 
Apology (IX, 265) the Syriac, in defining the Christian theology or 
philosophy as distinct from that of the Barbarians (Egyptians), Greeks, 
and Jews, says: ‘‘And it is said that God came down from heaven, and 
from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the 
Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, 
as it is called, which a short time ago was preached among them.” * 


26"°Os ddnOas eyevvfOn, Eparyev Te kal Emer. 
— Soe [Aa-os {AScko a > bao — jad} Dowd) prolAsco 77 
Sado sopep wa [Zpae sha Ja Shp p> bea] 2pa5 jicko . jms 
aes pH dl cod] lo un pedo 2} 2)722I9 + ome es lpado] 12} 
vped] Lepady [Dope Seo . Scalia Sasa on :oudsty [Xoo qosnd 


PScodad segio aZalpopicn [los] pds2 Jpssadz —? miscon 
21 


22 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


The Syriac version gives evidence of being an early and expansive 
paraphrase of the genuine Greek text.” Although the passage here 
quoted has nothing corresponding to it in the Greek, it no doubt 
represents an early second-century and possibly Antiochian belief. In 
tracing the doctrine of the virgin birth, this Syriac document is to be 
admitted in evidence, but the interrogation point as to exact date 
must be retained. Now, this Syriac interpolation states three things: 
(1) that God came down from heaven and took his abode in a Hebrew 
virgin from whom he assumed flesh; (2) that in this state he is the 
Son of God; and (3) that this belief isa part of the gospel recently 
preached among the Christians. 

1. It is clear that Aristides used John and Matthew or Luke. 

2. He states the pre-existence as deity of him who was born of 
Mary, and who, being born of Mary, is also Son of God; but he 
nowhere indicates how he relates these two conceptions to each other. 
The virgin birth is distinctly an incarnation. 

3. This is adecided divergence from the two synoptic accounts, 
and also an advance upon, and an alteration of, the teaching of John, 
which sets forth an incarnation of the Word. What was dimly present 
in Ignatius became clearly defined in Aristides, who attempted to fuse 
a misinterpretation of the philosophy of John’s prologue with the 
story of the miraculous birth in the first and third gospels. Thus 
Aristides denaturalized the birth beyond what is taught in the gospels 
or in Ignatius. 

III. Justin Martyr” (about 110-66 A. D.). The extant mate- 
rial of Justin bearing on the virgin birth is found, with one excep- 
tion, in his first Apology and in the Dialogue with Trypho. The genu- 
ineness of these works is practically beyond doubt ; and the fragment 
on the Resurrection, from which the only other reference is taken, 
cannot, I think, be proved spurious. It has seemed best to deal with 
this rather voluminous material under five heads: (1) we shall con- 
sider those passages which state the fact of the virgin birth, and insepa- 
rably connected with these we shall find certain phrases or clauses 
expressing the purpose of this kind of birth; (2) we shall notice the 
problems with which Trypho the Jew confronts such a theory; (3) the 
use of Greek theology or mythology ; (4) Justin’s appeal to and use of 
prophecy ; (5) we shall note some concessions granted by this eminent 
champion of the Christian faith. 

38See Texts and Studies, Vol. I, No. 1. 

29 EUSEBIUS, Church History, Books IV, VIII, XII, XVI-XVIII. 

22 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 23 


1. The passages which make the simple statement that he was born 
of a virgin by the power of God are: Apology, I, 32 (I, 174), 46 (I, 
178) ; Dialogue, 23 (I, 206), 105 (I, 251), 113 (I, 255), and 127 (I, 263). 
Those which add some expression as to the purpose of the virgin birth 
are: Apol., 1,63 (I, 184), “for the salvation of those who believe on 
him ;” Dial. 45 (1, 217), to destroy the “serpent” and his angels, to 
disdain death, and to finally do away with it; and Dia/., 100 (I, 249), 
containing an explanation of the term “Son of man,” because of 
Jesus’ birth by Mary or his descent from Adam through Mary; also a 
statement of the purpose as follows: 

He became man by the Virgin in order that the disobedience which pro- 
ceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in 
which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin, and undefiled, having 
conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedienceand death. But 
the virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced the 
good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the 
power of the Highest would overshadow her; wherefore the holy thing 
begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, Be it unto me according 
to thy word. And by her has he been born to whom we have proved so 
many scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those 
angels and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those 
who repent of their wickedness and believe upon him.” 


This antithesis of the work of Mary to that of Eve is met with 
here for the first time. It is a favorite theme with the Fathers, how- 
ever, and will reappear frequently in more elaborate form.™ 

2. The problems raised by Trypho are twofold : (1) the distinctively 
Jewish difficulty of how there can be another god besides the maker of 
all things, chap. 50 (I, 220), and (2) the difficulty of showing that this 


3°JusTIN MARTYR, Dialogus cum Tryphone Judaco, C: Kat 6a ris Tapbévov 
&vOpwros yeyovévat, tva kat di’ Hs 6500 4 dd Tod pews mapakoh Thy apxhv €daBe, kal dia 
TavTns THs 6500 Kal karddvoww AGBy. TlapOévos yap otca Eta kal ApOopos, rov Abyow rdv 
amd Tod pews guANaBovca, wapakxony Kat Odvaroy €rexe. lori 6é kal xapav AaBotca 
Mapla % IapGévos, evaryyedfouévou atrg TaBpiyd dyyédou, Src Iveiua Kuplov ér’ airy 
érededoerat, kal Stvams ‘TWlorov émicxidoer adryv. 50 kal Td yevvwpevoy €& abriis dy.dy 
éotiv Tlds Beod, dmexplyaro, ‘‘Tévorrd poe xara 7d pHud cov.’ Kal dia ravrns yeyév- 
ynrat ovTos, wept ob Tas Tocavras I'padds dmedeliauev elpjobat, dv’ ob 6 Beds Thy Te Suv 
kal rods duowévras dyyéNous Kal dvOpwmous katadvea. "Amaddayhy dé Tod Oavdrou Tots 
ueTayiweaKovow ard TOv pald\wv Kal micredovoty els abrov épydgerat, 


3t There is a spurious passage, “ Resurrection,” 3 (I, 295), which states from the 
ascetic standpoint the purpose of Christ’s peculiar birth: ‘‘ And our Lord Jesus Christ 
was born of a virgin, for no other reason than that he might destroy the begetting by 
lawless desire, and might show to the rulers that the formation of man was possible 
to God without human intervention.” 


23 


24 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


second pre-existent God submitted to be born of a virgin, chaps. 50, 63 
(I, 228), and chap. 68 (I, 252). The Jews expected that when their 
Christ came he would be “man born of men.” In answer to these 
two objections, Justin makes an appeal to the prophecy purporting to 
relate to John the Baptist and the two advents of Christ; and, to 
establish his pre-existence and divinity, makes use of the account of 
how God (who was not God the Father) appeared to Moses and other 
Hebrew patriarchs, and of how the plural of the deity is used in the 
account of creation. Trypho is, according to Justin’s account, con- 
vinced on the first point more easily than a modern reader would be, 
but on the second he maintains his ground in spite of the apologist’s 
use of Isa. 53:8; Ps. 110:3,4; and the Immanuel passage, Isa. 7: 10- 
17. He prefers to think with the Ebionites of a thoroughly human 
Jesus, who, if Christ at all, was made so by the descent of the Spirit of 
God upon him. 

3. The passages which make use of the argument from Greek 
mythology fall into two classes: (1) those which favor the virgin birth 
on the basis of the Greek parallels; and (2) those which emphasize 
the distinction between the Christian story and those of the Greeks, 
showing to advantage the chaste and exalted nature of the former. 
Passages of the first sort are Afo/., I, 21 and 22 (I, 170): 

And when we say that the Word who is the first-birth (first-born) of God 
was produced without sexual union. . . . we propound nothing different from 
what you believe regarding those whom you esteemed sons of Jupiter. For 
you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribe to Jupiter. And 
if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, 
different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary 
thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. ... . And if 
we affirm that he was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you 
accept of Perseus. 

But it should be noted that in chap. 67 Trypho maintains that 
Justin should be ashamed of propounding a story similar to that of 
the mythology regarding Perseus. So that the parallel to Greek 
mythology is in Trypho’s estimation a further condemnation of the 
virgin-birth story. A little farther on, Déa/., chap. 70 (I, 234), Justin 
makes avery ingenious turn of the mythological argument, assert- 
ing that these Greek stories were concocted by Satan, the simulator, on 
the basis of the prophecies that foretold the virgin birth. 2. g.- “ And 


32], 21: To dé kal rdv Adyov, 8 éore rpBrov yévynua Tod Heod, dvev éwmimitlas PdoKey 
Has yeyevngar. .... od mapa Tods rap’ div Neyouevous vlods TE Au kawwdv Te Hépomer. 
Ilécous yap viods pPdaoxover Tod Acds ol map’ buiv Tysmpevor cvyypadgels érloracde, 


24 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 25 


when I hear, Trypho, said I, that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I 
understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this.’’% 
The outstanding passage which differentiates the Christian from the 
heathen stories is Afo/., I, 33 (I, 174): 


But lest some, not understanding the prophecy now cited, should charge 
us with the very things we have been laying to the charge of the poets, who 
say that Jupiter went in to women through lust, let us try to explain the 
words. This, then, “ Behold a virgin shall conceive,” signifies that a virgin 
should conceive without intercourse; for if she had had intercourse with any- 
one whatever, she was no longer a virgin; but the Power of God having 
come upon the virgin, overshadowed her, and caused her while yet a virgin to 
conceive. And the angel of God who was sent to this same virgin at the 
same time brought her good news, saying, ‘‘ Behold, etc. . . . . ” It is wrong, 
therefore, to understand the Spirit and the Power of God as anything else 
than the Word, who is also the first-born of God, as the aforesaid prophet 
Moses declared; and it was this which, when it came upon the virgin and 
overshadowed her, caused her to conceive, not by intercourse, but by power. # 

Certainly this passage makes for a high appreciation of Justin’s 
insight and discretion. He draws from Luke and interprets him cor- 
rectly, rigidly excluding any idea of intercourse. He repudiates 
Greek mythology as being in any way his own explanation of the vir- 
gin birth, although he has used it as an argumentum ad hominem to 
silence the inconsistent carpings of his gentile opponents. Moreover, 
the Spirit, the Power, the Word, and the Son of God are for him syn- 
onymous terms, and upon this basis he attempts an ingenious harmony 
of John and Luke. Justin’s repudiation of the Greek mythological 
explanation is one of the most creditable elements in his apology 
touching the virgin birth. Whether the Christian conception be right 
or not, Justin has, in so far as he represents the early second-century 
thought, freed it from the grossness of similar heathen stories, and has 


33 Dial.: Oray 6¢, & Tpipuv, Ebnv, éx rapbévov yeyevvijcbat Tov Mepoéa dxovow, kal 
TOUTO minoagbar Tov wAdvoY Bpiv cuvinu. 


34" Omrws 5¢ uh Tives wh vojoavres Thy dednwucvnv mpopyrelav, éyxadécwouy july dep 
évexahécapev Trois mwontais elwotow ddpodislwy xdpw édndrvObévar él yuvaikas Tov Ala, 
Siacapjoa Tods Abyous weipacwpeba, Tod ody, Idod  mapHévos év yaorpl ea, onualver od 
cuvovoiacbeisav Thy mapbévov cuddaBeiv. Ei yap éovvovordcOn bd drovoiv, ok Ere Hy 
map0évos, GAG Stvapus Oeod ereNOotca ry mapbévy érecklacey airhy, Kal Kvopopca. 
map0évov otcav memolnxe, Kal 6 darocrahels 5¢ mpds abrivy thy mapbévov Kar’ éxeivo Tod 
Kaipod ayyedos Oeod, edyyyeNoaro atriy elrdv: “Ido... . Td Ivedua ody nal ri 
Sbvayev Thy rapa TOO Beod obdév AX vojoae Gems, Tov Adyov, ds kal mpwrdroxos TO Oe@ 
dort, os Mwiofs 6 mpodedn\wuévos mpopyrns éunvuce, Kal rotro éhOdv éml tiv mapbévor 
kal émurxidoay ob dia cuvovalas, dAAG Sid Suvdpews eyxvuova KaréorysE, 


25 


26 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


preserved in his own more explicit language much of the chaste 
quality of the gospel narratives themselves. No part of his apology is 
more sane than this, unless, indeed, it be the concessions which, for 
the practical purpose of winning Trypho and men of his kind, he is 
willing to make. 

4. Justin makes a large and questionable use of prophecy. As 
would be expected, the chief appeal is to the Immanuel passage in 
Isa., chap. 7, but there is also a reference to “Who shall declare his 
generation” (Isa., chap. 53), and a peculiar use of Gen. 49:11: 
‘He hath washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of 
grapes.” : 

In Afol., I, 33 (I, 174), Justin asserts that the prophecy (predic- 
tion) was made in order to strengthen the faith of those who should 
see its fulfilment, and insists that the term “virgin” (wap@évos) precludes 
the possibility of intercourse in the generation of the child referred to. 
In Dial., chaps. 42 (I, 216), 66 (I, 231), 71 (I, 234), and 84 (I, 241), he 
recognizes and denies the Jewish contention that the prophecy refers 
to Hezekiah and that the term (LXX: 7 zapOévos) used in the 
prophecy means simply a young woman. He takes up the more con- 
structive part of his argument in chaps. 77 and 78 (I, 237, 238). 
By a somewhat minute and decidedly parabolic interpretation, he 
attempts to show that the prophecy refers to Christ rather than to Heze- 
kiah. This predictive scripture called Herod king of Assyria because 
of his ungodly character. Christ, before he was old enough to call 
father or mother, received the power of Damascus through the magi 
who came with their gifts from Arabia; while Samaria represents the 
power of the demon, to whom prior to the birth of Christ the magi 
were in bondage. Thus in the birth of Christ alone the other specific 
predictions of the prophecy are notably fulfilled, and therefore 
strengthen the argument for the foretold virgin birth. It is pointed 
out, further, in Déa/., chap. 84 (I, 241), that it would have been no 
sign at all if the child referred to had been born by ordinary genera- 
tion, and that the peculiar manner of birth is in keeping with the 
creative function of the Word of God, who made Eve from Adam’s 
rib, and in the beginning created all living beings apart from parentage. 

Leaving the Immanuel passage, we may get further light as to 
Justin’s use of Scripture from the following quotations. Dya/., chap. 
54 (I, 222): 

That the Scripture mentions the blood of the grape (Gen. 49:11) has 
been evidently designed because Christ derives blood, not from the seed of 

26 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 27 


man, but from the power of God. For as God, and not man, has produced 
the blood of the vine, so also (the Scripture) has predicted that the blood of 
Christ would be, not of the seed of man, but of the power of God. But this 
prophecy, sirs, which I repeat, proves that Christ is not man of men, begotten 
in the ordinary course of humanity.3 

The passage then which Isaiah records, ‘‘ Who shall declare his genera- 
tion? For his life is taken from the earth,” does it not appear to you to refer 
to one who, not having descent from man, was said to be delivered over to 
death by God, for the transgressions of the people ? Of whose blood, Moses, 
when speaking in parable, said that he would wash his garments in the blood of 
the grape; since his blood did not spring from the seed of man, but from the 
will of God. And then what is said by David (Ps. 110:3): In the splendors 
of thy holiness have I begotten thee from the womb, before the morning star. 
The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever, after 
the order of Melchizedek. Does this not declare to you that (he was) from 
of old, and that the God and Father of all things intended him to be begot- 
ten by a human womb ? % 


Perhaps no comment need be made upon Justin’s use of Scripture. 
It is very evident that the New Testament narratives had not in his 
time obtained for themselves the standing of the Old Testament writ- 
ings; therefore he felt the necessity of basing his Aology upon the 
ancient, authoritative, and “‘inspired”’ Scripture. The violence of his 
interpretation was not violence in those days, but rather ingenuity, 
ability, and “spiritual,” rather than historical, insight. The final 
impression left upon the mind of the reader, however, is that of respect 
for the interpretative method of Trypho and the Jewish school, and of 
regret that the great Greek apologist for the Christian faith should be so 
far afield from a just and historical interpretation of the Old Testament. 


3 Dial.: Td 5é alua ris crapudijs elretv rov Abyor, did THs Téxvns dedAjrwxKev, Sre 
alua pev xe 6 Xpicrds ok €E dvOpwmov omépuaros, GAN’ éx THs Tod Geod Suvduews, “Ov 
yap tpbrov 7d Tis dumédou alua ovK AvOpwros éyévynoev, GAA Oeds, oUTws Kal 7d TOD 
Xpicrod alua ovk €& dvOpurrelov yévous EcerGat, adr’ €x Ocod Suvduews, mpoeuhvucev, ‘H dé 
mpopnrela airy, & dvipes, iv Edeyov, dmodexvier bre ovK ~orw 6 Xpwrds AvOpwros éé 
avOpwrwv, kata Td Kowdy TOY avOpmirwv yevvnbels. 


36 Dialogue, chap. 63 (1, 228, 229): ‘* Thy yevedv abrod rls dimyhoerac; dre alperac 
amd THs ys 7] {wh adrod,” ob Soxe? cor AeAéX Oar ws ovk €& dvOpwmrwy Exovros Td yévos Tod 
dia ras dvoulas Tob Aaod els Odvarov mwapadeddcbar elpnuévov vrd Tod Oeod; rept ov Kal 
Mwojjs rot aluaros, ws mpoépny, atuart cragudfjs, év wapaBonr7 elradv, thy orodhy abrod 
thivery Epn, Ws TOD aluaros avrod otk é& dvOpwmrelov omépuaros yeyevvnuévov, GAN’ éx 
OeXjpwatos Oeod. Kal ra vd AaBld elpnuéva, ‘‘’Ev rats Xaumpbrnor TOv aylwy cov éx 
yaorpds mpd éwopbpov eyévynod oe. “Quoge Kupws xal od werauédn Ojoerar. od iepeds 
els rov aldva Kara Thy rat Medxicedéx,” ob onualver duiv Ore dvwOev, Kal did yaorpods 
avOpwrelas 6 Geds kal ILarnp r&v bdwv yevvGo0a abrdv EuendXe. 


27 


28 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


5. But it is not as if the scriptural argument were the whole of 
Justin’s Afology, and represented the sum total of his thought regard- 
ing the virgin birth. As has been already indicated, he shows himself 
perhaps wiser in his concessions than in his assertions. It is true that 
these concessions are demanded by Trypho, chaps. 67 (I, 231) and 49 
(I, 219), who tries to put Justin to shame for upholding a story similar 
to that of the birth of Perseus from Danae: 

And you ought to feel ashamed when you make assertions similar to 
theirs, and rather should say that this Jesus was born man of men. And if 
you prove from the Scriptures that he is the Christ, and that on account of 
having led a life conformed to the law and perfect, he deserved the honor 
of being elected to be Christ, (it is well) ; but do not venture to tell monstrous 
phenomena, lest you be convicted of talking foolishly like the Greeks.” 

It was probably in reply to such demands as this that Justin found 
it possible to separate the question of the divinity of Christ from that 
of the manner of his birth, and to fall back upon the character and 
ability of Jesus as a more tenable apologetic ground than that of his 
peculiar generation. Afo/., I, 22 (I, 170): 

Moreover, the Son of God, called Jesus, even if only a man by ordinary 

[generation], yet on account of his wisdom is worthy to be called the Son of 
God; for all writers call God the Father of men and gods.* 
In chap. 48 (I, 219) there is another very remarkable passage of 
concession, and one which indicates that in Justin’s time there were 
Christians who, if his judgment was at all representative, were in good 
standing among their brethren, while denying the miraculous and 
asserting the full natural birth of Christ : 

Now assuredly, Trypho, I continued, that this man is the Christ of God 
does not fail, though I be unable to prove that he existed formerly as Son of 
the Maker of all things, being God, and was born man by the virgin. But 
since I have certainly proved that this man is the Christ of God, whoever he 
be, even if I do not prove that he pre-existed, and submitted to be born a 
man of like passions with us, having a body according to the Father’s will ; 
in this last matter alone it is just to say that I have erred, and not to deny 
that he is the Christ, though it should appear that he was born man of man, 


3767: Kal duets ra adra éxelvois Néyovres, aldeirOar dpeldere, kal udddov dvOpwmrov 
cE dvOpwrwv yevouevov Aéyev Tov” Inoobv rodrov. Kal édv dmrodelxvure dd Tov paddy, 
bre abrés éotiv 6 Xpiords, Sid 7d évvduws Kal Tehéws modireverOar abrdv, Karnii@aGar Tov 
éxdeyqvac els Xpicrdv. GAG wi TepaTroroyely ToAMGaTeE, Orrws pre duolws Tots "EdAnoe 
pewpalvery Ehéyx node. 


3822: ids dé Geod 6 Inoods Neydpuevos, el kal Kowwds udvov dvOpwros, 51a coplay dts 
ulds Oeod NéyeoOar. marépa yap dvipGv re Oedy re wavres cvyypadeis Tov Bedy Kaholory. 


28 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 29 


and it is proved that he became Christ by election. For there are some, my 
friends, I said, of our race, who admit that he is Christ, while holding him to 
be man of men; with whom I do not agree, nor would I, even though most 
of those who have the same opinions as myself should say so; since we were 
enjoined by Christ himself to put no faith in human doctrines, but those pro- 
claimed by the blessed prophets and taught by himself. 

To summarize the teaching of Justin Martyr very briefly, we would 
say that he looked upon the virgin birth of the pre-existent Word as an 
important factor in securing the salvation of believers and the destruc- 
tion of Satan, disobedience, and death. Justin was acquainted with 
the Logos doctrine of the fourth gospel, but was confused in his 
thought concerning the Spirit, the Power, and the Word, all of which 
were to him terms for the first-born of God, Afo/., I, 33 (1, 174); his 
idea is distinctly that of an incarnation. Heregarded Mary’s function 
for the race as in some sense the antithesis of that of the disobedient 
Eve. The Old Testament narrative proved the pre-existence of Christ, 
the Word, and clearly predicted his peculiar birth. Those who 
accepted Greek mythology had no right to hesitate at the Christian 
story of the virgin birth, since Satan foresaw this story in prophecy 
and counterfeited it in the Greek mythology, and since the Christian 
story is free from all the grossness of the Greek myths. But, after all, 
the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, may be established 
by appeal to his ability, character, and his consequent election by God, 
as some Christians maintain, rather than upon his miraculous birth ; 
although Justin is by no means willing to accept this opinion for him- 
self. 

1. Justin (Dia/., chap. 78) is the first to give evidence of the 
presence and use of an extra-canonical source. The mention of the 
birth of Jesus in a cave near Bethlehem indicates Justin’s knowledge 
of some such material as is contained in the protevangelium of 

39"Hin uévror, & Tptdwy, elrov, ovx dwédduTae Td ToLolTov elvac Xpiordv Tod Geod, 


éav drodeitac wh Sbvwuae bre Kal mpoimipxev Tids rod ILornrod ray bdwv, Beds dv, Kal 
yeyévynrat &vOpwros bia THs IlapOévov. “ANAa éx wayrds drrodexvuuévov, bre obrds 
éorwy 6 Xpicrds 6 Tod Oeod, doris ovTOs ora, édv 5é uy Grodeckviw bre mpoiTIpxe, 
kal yevynOjvac &vOpwros duowrabys july, cdpxa xwv, Kara Thy Tod Ilarpds BovdAny 
bréuevev, év rovTw Twemavqobal pe udvoy Aéyew Slkavov, GAAA pH apvetrbar dre odrds 
éorw 6 Xpurrds, éav palvynra ws dvOpwros cf dvOpwrwy yevynbels, kal Exoy7) yevduevos els 
rov Xpworov elvar drodexvinra. Kal yap elot tives, & pido, Edeyor, dwd Tod juerépou 
yévous duodoyoovres abrov Xpicrodv elvar, dvOpwrov 5é €& dvOpwrwy yevouevov dwopaivé- 
pevor, ols ob cuvTiPeuat, od’ Av mreioro Tab’rd por Sogdcavres elroiev, €recdt ovK 
dvOpwrelois didd-yuace Kexedevoueda br’ abrod To Xpicrod welferGar, GANA Tots did TOY 


paxaplwy mpopnr dv xnpvxGetcr kal dc’ avrod didaxGeior, 
29 


30 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


James.#° But the remarkable fact is that, if such a gospel were in exist- 
ence and known to Justin, it should have failed to influence his view of 
the virgin birth and should have supplanted or colored in so smalla 
degree his reflection of the canonical infancy stories. His use of the 
canonical stories is clearly evidenced in such passages as Afol., I, 33 
(I, 174); Dial, chaps. 78 (1, 237, 238) and 100 (I, 249) ;** while Aol, 
I, 30, indicates that he had a knowledge of both Matthew and Luke. 
That he was acquainted with some extra-canonical source is to be 
granted, but, at the same time, the absence of any real or significant 
influence of such a source is of considerable importance. 

2. Justin’s idea of the virgin birth is that of the incarnation (by 
such a process as is described in Luke) of the Son of God, who was 
indeed God and who with the Father constituted a sort of ditheism” 
in the heavenly world prior to incarnation. 

3. From the foregoing it will be seen that Justin’s contribution is 
in the direction of a schematic understanding of the virgin birth, and 
that his attempt is harmonistic, not only in the matter of combining, 
as far as possible, the Johannine and the Lucan representations, as a 
whole, but in identifying the “Spirit” and “Power” in Luke with 
the “Word” in John, and all of these with the “Son of God,” 
whom he considers to be none other than God. His view is decid- 
edly that of an incarnation; and in this he agrees with Aristides, 
but goes beyond him in the attempt to harmonize the facts with this 
view. 

IV. Tatran (about 110-72 A. D.). Tatian’s writings have very 
largely perished, possibly because of the church’s disapproval of his 
teaching. In his address to the Greeks, chap. 21 (II, 74), we have 
the nearest approach to a theory of the virgin birth: 


We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce 


4° The statement in the same passage that the magi came from Aradia seems to 
embody a tradition more specific than the story of Matthew, or it may be Justin’s inter- 
pretation of “from the East.” The extant apocryphal gospels make no mention of 
such a fact. 


4t CONRADY, Quelle der Kindheitsgesch. Jesu, pp. 126 ff., endeavors to magnify 
Justin’s use of extra-canonical sources, especially his use of the gospel of James, and 
upon the basis of Afo/., 1, 33, ws ol dmouvnuovedoarres wdvra Ta wept Tod gwripos Hav 
"Inood Xpiwrod édldaéav, concludes that, according to his own words, Justin used more 
than one gospel of the childhood. 


42.On the other hand, Justin’s unequivocal statement of Jewish monotheism is 
seen in Dia/., chaps. 11, 114, 127; also in Afol., I, 12, 61, and Afo/., II, 6. 


30 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH Si 


that God was born in the form of aman. I call on you who reproach us to 
compare your mythical accounts with our narration.‘ 


Although this is not exactly to the point, it seems to be an echo of 
the familiar argument of his teacher Justin. The genealogical tables 
are omitted“ from his Diatessaron (IX, 44, 45), but the account of the 
virgin birth is faithfully reproduced from Matthew and Luke. 

Thus, while the evidence from Tatian is very meager, it is perhaps 
sufficient to warrant the conclusion that, at the time of his writing the 
address to the Greeks, and also at the time of the compilation of his 
harmony, he was in accord with the narratives in the infancy sections 
of the gospels, and probably shared largely in the apologetic position 
of Justin Martyr. 

V. MEtiTo (bishop of Sardis, 160-77 A. D.) has four brief refer- 
ences to the virgin birth that are preserved to us. These assert the 
pre-existence of Jesus without bodily form, and that, though he was 
“arrayed in the nature of his Father,” he was carried in the womb of 
the virgin and assumed a bodily form from her. Drscourse on the 
Cross, chap. 3 (VIII, 756), on Faith, chaps. 4 and 5 (VIII,757). The 
reference in the Discourse on Faith, chap. 4, is a striking example of 
the attempted harmony of the Johannine prologue with a combination 
of the infancy stories of Matthew and Luke. No extra-canonical 
influence is discernible, and the contribution of Melito is without par- 
ticular significance. 

VI. IrEN#us (about 120-202 A. D.). With Irenzeus we pass from 
the field of apologetics to that of polemics. Justin Martyr was able to 
get along on friendly terms with his fellow-Christians who believed in 
the natural generation of Jesus. This may have been due to the toler- 
ant spirit of Justin, or to one or both of two other facts, viz., the com- 
parative unimportance of the doctrine of the virgin birth in the church 
at large, and, what is quite probable, the comparative moderation of 
those who took occasion to deviate in some respect from the estab- 
lished belief. But in the time of Irenzeus the doctrine had become so 
rigid and was thought to be freighted with so weighty theological 
consequences, and, moreover, its various classes of opponents had 
become so strong and so odious to the orthodox majority, that the 


43TATIAN, Oratio adv. Graecos, 21: Ob yap pwpalvouer, dvdpes “EXAnves, od Se 
Anpois araryyéddopuev, Gedy év dvOpwrov poppy yeyovévat karayyéddovtes. Oi AowWopodvres 
uas cvyKplvare Tovs w0Oous buGv Tots Huerépors Sinyhuace. 
44This to disprove the descent of Jesus from David. See THEODORET, Haeret 
Fab., I, 20. 
31 


82 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


defender of Christianity was forced to direct his energies against them 
rather than against the outside world.‘ 

This Irenzus did with no sparing hand, and so diligent was he in 
meeting the Gnostics at every turn in their mystic and extravagant 
vagaries, so persistent in his appeal to the law, the prophets, and the 
New Testament writings, and so conscientious in emphasizing the vital 
deductions which he thought to rest upon the doctrine of the virgin 
birth, that we are indebted to him for both a large amount of material 
on the question and almost proportionate light. 

From an inductive study this material finally falls into a threefold 
division, which, with the ordinary exceptions due to such a method, will 
best serve to present the status of the doctrine in the time of Irenzus. 
We shall endeavor to give, first, a statement of the various views held, 
including, as far as we are able to interpret it, that of the Gnostics. In 
the second division Irenzeus’s appeal to Scripture will be presented; and 
in the third, the more distinctively theological argument and deductions. 

1. The doctrine is stated or denied in a great variety of forms, the 
most difficult being that of the Gnostics produced in their attempt to 
keep Christ utterly free from the pollution of inherently evil flesh, and 
also to keep God the Father from dealing directly with that which was 
human and therefore sinful. In Against Heresies, 1, 7, § 2 (I, 325) * it 
is stated that the Christ was produced by the Demiurge from a psychic 
(Yuxixov) nature, and that this Christ passed through Mary as water 
through a tube. Thus he was made in heaven of wholly supra-earthly 
substance, and suffered no pollution or alteration in his earthly advent. 
The continual aim of the Gnostics is thoroughly to denaturalize the 
conception, birth, and appearance of Jesus, in order to preserve the 
divinely created Christ from material contamination. In Against Here- 
stes, III, 22, 2 (1, 454), Irenzeus meets this theory in the following words: 


Superfluous, too, in that case, is his descent into Mary; for why did he 
come down into her if he were to take nothing of her? Still further, if he 
had taken nothing of Mary, he would never have availed himself of those 
kinds of food which are derived from the earth by which that body which has 
been taken from the earth is nourished.‘ 


A rather elaborate statement of the mediaries used by God in the 
formation and earthly birth of Christ is given in I, 15, 3 (I, 339): 

4SEuUSEBIUS, Church History, Books V, XX, XXVI. 

4° The citations in this section, unless otherwise designated, are from this work. 

47’ Exel repro) kal 4 els Thy Mapiay abrod KdOodos, rl yap kal els abrhy Karte, el 
wndév Euedde AfpPerOar map’ avbris; “Ere re el udev elAfper mapa rs Maplas, odx avras 
ard yijs el\nupévas mpoolero Tpopas, di’ Gv rd dard yas AnpPbev rpépera oGua, 


32 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 33 


The angel Gabriel took the place of Logos, the Holy Spirit that of Zoe, 
the Power of the Highest that of Anthropos, while the Virgin pointed out the 
place of Ecclesia. And thus by a dispensation there was generated by Him 
through Mary that man whom, as he passed through the womb, the Father 
of all chose to obtain the knowledge of Himself by means of the Word. 

Here, as in many of the Gnostic utterances, it is difficult to discover 
any clear and consistent conception running through the passage. 
This is due to the studied coining of terms and juggling with the 
same for the purpose of making the Christian system more of an awe- 
inspiring mystery, known only to the initiated. From the context, 
however, it seems that these zons of the tetrad, viz., dvOpwmos, éxxAn- 
aia, Adyos, and wy, produced the pre-existent Christ; and in order 
to have an exact parallel in God’s generation of Jesus through Mary, 
these agencies have fitting substitutes which carry out the divine will, 
viz., Gabriel for Adyos, the Holy Spirit for €w7, the Power of the High- 
est for dv@pwros, and the virgin Mary for éxxAnoia. There is in this 
scheme of substitution some show of reason. Gabriel does with some 
fitness fill the place of the Word or messenger of God; the Holy Spirit, 
the place of the imparted divine life; the Power of the Highest, the 
place of the natural generating agency, man; and Mary, the place of 
the medium, the church, through which God comes among men. The 
scheme is inconsistent where it introduces the Word as imparting to 
Jesus in his passage through the womb the knowledge of the Father. 

In I, 25, 1, Carpocrates*® and his followers ‘“‘ hold that Jesus was the 
son of Joseph and was just like other men, with the exception that he 
differed from them in this respect, that, inasmuch as his soul was 
steadfast and pure, he perfectly remembered those things which he had 
witnessed within the sphere of the unbegotten God.’* Here one 
cannot escape the inference that Carpocrates and his followers believed 
in the pre-existence of the souls of all men. 

Further statements are found in four or five other passages which 
it is necessary to incorporate in this section : 

48 Kal rod pév Nbyou dvarerdnpwxévan Tov Témov Tov dyyedov T'aBprpr, THs 5€ Zwijs 7d 
&y.ov Ivedua, Tod 5¢ avOpwrov Thy Sivauev Tod tWlorou, Tov dé Tis "ExkAnolas térov 4 map- 


Gévos, ol'rws Te 6 Kar’ olkovoulay did THs Maplas ~yeveovoupyetrac wap’ alr@ dvOpwros dy 6 
marhp Tav dwv dehOdvra dia wyrpas ébehéfaro did Adyou els émlyvwow avrou, 

49 EuSEBIUS, Church History, Books IV, VII. 

5°See John 17:3. IRENA@uS, Contra Haereses, 1, 25,1: “(Dicunt) Jesum autem e 
Joseph natum, et cum similis reliquis hominibus fuerit, distasse a reliquis secundum id, 
quod anima eius firma et munda cum esset. Commemorata fuerit quae visa essent 
sibiin ea circumlatione quae fuisset ingenito Deo.” 


33 


34 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


I, 26, 1 (I, 352): “He [Cerinthus%*] represented Jesus as having not 
been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to 
the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more 
righteous, prudent, and wise than other men.”’* Jdid., 2: ‘ Those who are 
called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions 
with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates,” 33 
1,27, 1 (1,352): “ Cerdo .. . . taughtthat the God proclaimed by the law and 
the prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former 
was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also was righteous, but 
the other benevolent,” IV, 16, 1 (1,440): ‘“ The Valentinians 55 again main- 
tain that the dispensational Jesus was the same who passed through Mary, 
upon whom the Savior from the more exalted region descended.”’5* V, Ig, 
2 (I, 547): “Others still despise the advent of the Lord manifest [to the 
senses], for they do not admit his incarnation; while others, ignoring the 
arrangement that he should be born of a virgin, maintain that he was 
begotten by Joseph.” 57 


The standard summary of heresies is to be found in I, 22, 31 (I, 
347-58), where, beginning with Simon of Samaria, who held that God 
appeared among the Jews as Son, to the Samaritans as Father, and to 
other nations as the Holy Spirit, he passes on to mention nearly every 
phase of what he calls the “ Lernzan hydra that was generated from 
the school of Valentinus.” Saturninus of Antioch in Syria held that 
the Savior was without birth, body, or form, and was only by supposition 
a visible man. Basilides thought that Nous (vods) was the first-born of 
the unborn Father. Novs is called Christ,and from him was born 
Adyos. Christ appeared upon earth, wrought miracles, transformed 
himself as he pleased, was not in any way humiliated, defiled, or cruci- 

5* EusEBIus, Ch. H., Books III, XXVIII. 


5?Jesum autem subjecit non ex Virgine natum (impossibile enim hoc ei visum 
est); fuisse autem Joseph et Mariae filium similiter ut reliqui omnes homines, et plus 
potuisse justitia et prudentia et sapientia ab hominibus.” 


53“ Qui autem dicuntur Ebionaei consentiunt quidem mundum a Deo factum: ea 
autem, quae sunt erga Dominum, non similiter ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates opinantur.” 


4 Képdwy . . . . edldate tov bd Tod vduou Kal rpopynTrGv Kexnpvyuévov Bedv, wh elvan 
marépa Tod Kuplov nudy “Incod Xpucrod rdv pev yap yrwplfecbar Tov dé ayvGra elvar, cat 
Tov pev Slkavov Tov Se dyabdy brdpxeuw. 

55 EusEBIus, C. H., Books IV, X, XI. 


5¢*Qui autem a Valentino sunt, Jesum quidem, qui sit ex dispositione, ipsum 
esse, qui per Mariam transierit in quem illum de superiori Salvatorem descendisse; 
quem et Christum dici.” 


57“ Alii autem manifestum adventum Domini contemnunt, incarnationem eius non 
recipientes ; alii autem rursus ignorantes Virginis dispensationem ex Joseph dicunt 
eum generatum.” 


34 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 35 


fied. Carpocrates believed Jesus to be the son of Joseph and Mary as 
above stated ; and many of the followers of Basilides and Carpocrates, 
owing to their negation of the worth and salvability of the body and 
their belief in salvation and resurrection for the soul only, became 
degraded into licentiousness and promiscuity. Cerinthus and the 
Ebionites® agreed with Carpocrates as to the birth of Jesus. Cerdo 
emphasized the fact that the father of Jesus Christ was the unknown 
God and not he of the lawand prophets. Marcion accepted only the 
gospel of Luke, expunging therefrom the account of the generation of 
Jesus and other material offensive to the Gnostic taste. He treated 
the epistles of Paul and prophecy in the same manner. The Encra- 
tites were a product of the teaching of Saturninus and Marcion, but 
represented the extremely opposite result of that teaching which, 
springing from the same or a similar source, culminated in licentious- 
ness; for the Encratites, holding to the inherent evil of flesh and of 
human generation, practiced the most rigorous abstinence. Of this 
class was Tatian after the death of Justin Martyr. The Barbeliotes held 
that Barbelos, the eternal zon who existed as a virgin spirit, created 
light and, anointing it, thus constituted the Christ. The Ophites and 
Sethians, while believing that Jesus was begotten of a virgin through 
the agency of God, and was therefore wiser, purer, and more righteous 
than all other men, held at the same time that Jesus was only consti- 
tuted Christ by the descent of Christ united to Sophia (codéa) into him. 

A more condensed summary of the various beliefs touching the 
birth is found in ITI, 11, 3 (I, 427): 

Some, however, make the assertion that this dispensational Jesus did 
become incarnate and suffered, whom they represent as having passed through 
Mary just as water through a tube; but others allege him to be the son of 
the Demiurge, upon whom the dispensational Jesus descended; while others 
again say that Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary and that the Christ from 
above descended upon him, being without flesh and impassible. But accord- 
ing to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made 
flesh. For if anyone carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find 
that the Word of God is brought in by them all as not having become incar- 
nate (sé#e carne) and impassible,as is also the Christ from above. Others 
consider him to have been manifested as a transfigured man, but they main- 
tain him to have been neither born nor to have become incarnate; whilst 
others hold that he did not assume human form at all, but that as a dove he 
did descend upon that Jesus who was born of Mary. Therefore the Lord’s 

5®°It may be that the Ebionites denied the virgin birth of Jesus in order to main- 
tain his Davidic descent as Messiah. 


35 


36 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


disciple, pointing them all out as false witnesses, says, And the Word was 
made flesh and dwelt among us.%? 

In this passage five tolerably distinct views are set forth: (1) That 
Jesus, the pre-existent one, took a real body and became subject to suf- 
fering, but that his body was in no respect derived from Mary. This 
was the view of Valentinus and was elaborated by Apelles, Ptolemy, 
Secundus, and Heracleon. (2) That Jesus was the son of the Demiurge 
and that upon him descended the dispensational Jesus. (3) That Jesus 
was the son of Joseph and Mary, and that Christ, spiritual and inca- 
pable of suffering, descended upon him asa dove at baptism. This view 
is twice stated, the second statement being in the sentence before the 
last of the reference. It was the view of Carpocrates, Cerinthus, the 
Ebionites, and others. (4) That Jesus was manifested asa transfigured 
man, that he was a semblance only, without flesh and not born. This 
was the view of Saturninus, Basilides, and others. And (5) the view of 
the fourth gospel, and of Irenzus, that the Word was made flesh. 

So much for the various statements of the doctrine. The chief con- 
tribution made to the study is the appearance of Gnosticism in its 
attempt to entirely rid Jesus Christ of the pollution of the flesh, and 
this by an ignoring of the New Testament account and by a resort to 
philosophic theorizing upon the basis of a half-Hebraized and degen- 
erate Greek philosophy. Otherwise the opposing contentions of the 
natural birth and of the birth from Mary alone by the Power of God 
are practically the same as in the writings previously reviewed. 

2. Irenzus’s appeal to Scripture is noteworthy in that with him first 
we meet the use of the New Testament as an authority similar to the 
Old. His use of prophecy is on a par. with that of Justin Martyr.” 
The quotation of secs. 7 and 8 will suffice to illustrate this : 


59 IRENUS, Con. Haer., III, 11,3: ‘‘ Incarnatum autem et passum quidam quidem 
eum, qui ex dispositione sit, dicunt Jesum, quem par Mariam dicunt pertransisse, quas 
aquam per tubum, alii vero Demiurgi filium, in quem descendisse eum Jesum, qui ex 
dispositione sit; alii rursum Jesum quidem ex Joseph et Maria natum dicunt, et in hunc 
descendisse Christum, qui de superioribus sit; sine carne et impassibilem, exsistentem. 
Secundum autem nullam sententiam haereticorum, Verbum Dei caro factum est. Si 
enim quis regulas ipsorum omnium perscrutetur, inveniet quoniam sine carne, et impas- 
sibilis ab omnibus illis inducitur Dei Verbum, et qui est in superioribus Christus. 
Alii enim putant manifestatum eum, quemadmodum hominem transfiguratum; neque 
autem natum, neque incarnatum dicunt illum; alii vero neque figura meum assumpsisse 
hominis; sed quemadmodum columbam descendisse in eum Jesum, qui natus est ex 
Maria. Omnes igitur illos falsos testes ostendens discipulus Domini ait: Et Ver- 
bum caro factum est, et inhabitavit in nobis.” 

See III, 9, 2 and 3; 21, 1, especially §6, where the Ebionite contention for 


36 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 37 


On this account also Daniel [Dan. 2:34], foreseeing his advent, said 
that a stone cut out without hands came into this world.* For this is what 
“without hands” means, that his coming into this world was not by the 
operation of human hands, that is, of those men who are accustomed to stone- 
cutting ;* that is, Joseph taking no part with regard to it, but Mary only 
co-operating with the prearranged plan. For this stone from the earth 
derives existence from both the power and the wisdom of God. Wherefore 
also Isaiah says: ‘‘ Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I deposit in the foundations 
of Zion a stone, precious, elect, the chief, the corner one, to be had in honor.”’ 
So then we understand that his advent in human nature was not by the will of 
a man, but by the will of God. (8) Wherefore also Moses, giving a 
type, cast his rod® upon the earth, in order that it by becoming flesh might 
expose and swallow up all the opposition of the Egyptians which was lifting 
itself up against the prearranged plan of God; that the Egyptians themselves 
might testify that it is the finger of God which works salvation for the people, 
and not the son of Joseph. For if he were the son of Joseph, how could he 
be greater than Solomon or greater than Jonah or greater than David, when 
he was generated from the same seed, and was a descendant of these men ? 
And how was it that he also pronounced Peter blessed because he acknowl- 
edged him to be the son of the living God ? © 

In the following section (9) Irenzeus makes an appeal to prophecy 


vedvis rather than mwap@évos in the Immanuel passage is refuted; and §5 for a 
pedantic treatment of de fructu ventris, renum, lumborum, showing that the use of 
ventris in the promise to David predicted the virgin birth. 

6t See also zdzd., V, 25, 5 (I, 554). 

® An easy adaptation of the term “carpenter” (réxrwy) of the canonical and 
apocryphal gospels, so as to make it more consonant with the quotation from Daniel. 

6 TREN £US, Con. Haer., 111, 21,7: ‘ Propter hoc autem et Daniel praevidens eius 
adventum, lapidem sine manibus abscissum advenisse in hunc mundum (hoc enim est 
quod “sine manibus” ) significabat ; quod non operantibus humanis manibus, hoc est, 
virorum illorum qui solent lapides caedere, in hunc mundum eius adventus erat, id 
est, non operante in eum Joseph, sed sola Maria cooperante dispositioni. Hic enim 
lapis a terra, ex virtute et arte constat Dei. Propter hoc autem et Isaias ait: ‘sic 
dicit Dominus: Ecce ego mitto in fundamenta Sion lapidem pretiosum, electum, 
summum, angularem, honorificum ;’ uti non ex voluntate viri, sed ex voluntate Dei, 
adventum eius qui secundum hominem est intelligamus.” 

* Note the play upon words in the original. 

SIREN £US, Con. Haer., III, 21,8: “ Propter hoc autem et Moyses ostendans typum 
projecit virgam in terram, ut ea incarnata omnem Aegyptiorum praevaricationem 
quae insurgebat adversus Dei dispositionem, argueret et absorberet; et ut ipsi Aegyptii 
testificarentur, quoniam digitus est Dei, qui salutem operatur populo, et non Joseph 
filius. Sienim Joseph filius esset, quemadmodum plus poterat quam Salomon, aut 
plus quam Jonas habere, aut plus esse David, cum esset ex eadem seminatione 
generatus, et proles existens ipsorum? Ut quid autem et beatum dicebat Petrum, 
quod eum cognosceret esse Filium Dei vivi ?” 


37 


38 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


to show that, if Jesus were the son of Joseph, he could not be “ king or 
heir.” For in Matt. 1: 12-16 it is shown that Joseph was descended 
from Joachim and Jechoniah, but according to Jer. 22: 24 ff. and 36: 30 ff. 
these men were disinherited by God. 

Those therefore who say that he was begotten of Joseph, and that they 
have hope in him, do cause themselves to be disinherited from the kingdom, 
falling under the curse and rebuke directed against Jechoniah and his seed. 
Because for this reason have these things been spoken against Jechoniah, the 
Spirit foreknowing the doctrines of the evil teachers; that they may learn 
that from his seed —that is, from Joseph —he was not to be born, but that, 
according to the promise of God, from David's belly the king eternal is 
raised up, who sums up all things in himself and gathered into himself the 
ancient formation (of man).% 


The use of the New Testament centers very largely about the 
infancy sections.” First Cor. 15:3, 4, 12 is used for emphasis of the 
real humanity of Christ, III, 17, 3 (I, 446). John 1:13, ‘not born by 
the will of the flesh, or by the will of man,” is used in III, 19, 2 (I, 449). 
But perhaps most significant of all is the use of Gal. 4:4, 5 in III, 16, 
3 (I, 441), and III, 22, 1 (I, 454), “God sent forth his Son, born of a 
woman.” In fragments 52-4 (I, 577) the status of the gospels in this 
controversy is indicated. ‘‘ With regard to Christ, the law, the proph- 
ets, and the evangelists have proclaimed that he was born of a virgin.” ® 

The use of the New Testament is, on the whole, very much more 
reasonable than that of the Old Testament; and while the references in 
the Pauline epistles do not, in our thinking, contribute anything beyond 
a confirmation of the actual humanity of Christ (a point for which 
Irenzus had to contend), still one can readily understand how such a 
passage as Gal. 4: 4 was irresistibly attractive. But now that the gos- 
pels had become authoritative, and the infancy sections especially were 
so effectually used by the orthodox, it only remained for those who 
opposed the virgin birth to repudiate these sections. Hence we read 
in I, 28, 2 (I, 352): 

% TRENAUS, zézd., III, 21,9: “Qui ergo eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum et in 
eo habere spem, abdicatos se faciunt a regno, sub maledictione et increpatione 
decidentes, quae erga Jechoniam et in semen ejus. Propter hoc enim dicta sunt 
haec de Jechonia, spiritu praesciente ea quae a malis doctoribus dicuntur: uti dis- 
cant, quoniam ex semine eius, id est ex Joseph, non erit natus, sed secundum 
repromissionem Dei de ventre David suscitatur rex aeternus, qui recapitulatur omnia 
in se et antiquam plasmationem in se recapitulatus est.” 

FE By LUDy By Oy LOG) 16,2) Hiat Ble 4 EN, RB o> 

6% EuseBius, Ch. H., Books V, VIII. 

38 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 39 


Besides this he [ Marcion] mutilates the gospel which is according to Luke, 
removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting 
aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded 
as most clearly confessing that the maker of this universe is his Father. 


3. Passing now to Irenzus’s more distinctively theological argu- 
ment and deductions, we see that according to his thinking the virgin 
birth readily explained how the Son of God became the Son of man: 


He therefore, the Son of God, our Lord, being the Word of the Father, 
and the son of man, since he had a generation as to his human nature from 
Mary — who was descended from mankind, and who was herself a human 
being — was made the son of man” (III, 19, 3 [I, 449]). 


Moreover, the ability of Jesus and his excellence of character are 
not admitted as arguments for his messiahship and sonship apart from 
the virgin birth, as is the case in Justin Martyr, but are regarded as the 
consequences of such a birth (I, 30, 12 [I, 357]). 

The superficial parallelism and moral antithesis between the virgin 
birth and the creation and fall can be best appreciated from direct 
quotation : 


III, 21, 10 (I, 454): And as the protoplast himself, Adam, had his sub- 
stance from untilled and yet virgin soil”* (for God had not yet sent rain, and 
man had not yet tilled the ground), and was formed by the hand of God, 
that is, by the Word of God, for “‘all things were made by him,” and the Lord 
took dust from the earth and formed man; so did he who is the Word, 
recapitulating Adam in himself, rightly receive a birth enabling him to 
gather up Adam into himself from Mary, who was as yet a virgin. If, then, 
the first Adam had a man for his father, and was born of human seed, it 
were reasonable to say that the second Adam was begotten of Joseph. But 
if the former was taken from the dust, and God was his maker, it was incum- 
bent that the latter also, making a recapitulation in himself, should be 
formed as man by God, to have an analogy with the former as respects his 
origin. Why, then, did not God take dust, but wrought so that the formation 
should be made of Mary? It was that there might not be another formation 
called into being, nor any other which should require to be saved, but that 


6 TRENZUS, Con. Haer., I, 28, 2: “Et super haec id quod est secundum Lucam 
Evangelium circumcidens et omnia quae sunt de generatione Domini conscripta 
auferens, et de doctrina sermonum Domini multa auferens in quibus manifestissime 
conditorem huius universitatis suum Patrem confitens Dominus conscriptus est.” 


7?TRENAUS, zid., III, 19, 3: “ Hic igitur Filius Dei Dominus noster, existens 
Verbum Patris et filius hominis : quoniam ex Maria, quae ex hominibus habebat genus 
quae et ipsa erat homo, habuit secundum hominem generationem, factus est filius 
hominis.” 


™ Also III, 17, 7. 
39 


40 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


the same formation should be summed up, the analogy having been pre- 
served. 7 


Here, as in several other similar passages, Irenzeus shows a famil- 
iarity with Paul’s parallelism between Adam and Jesus, but differs from 
Paul in pushing the parallelism into a region of which Paul was either 
wholly ignorant, or with which he was totally unconcerned.” 

There is a significant passage in IV, 33, 4 (I, 507): 


And how shall he [man] escape from the generation subject to death, if 
not by means of a new generation, given in a wonderful and unexpected 
manner, but as a sign of salvation by God—I mean that regeneration which 
is from the virgin through faith?” Or how shall they receive adoption from 
God, if they remain in this kind of generation, which is naturally possessed 
by man in this world? And how should he [Christ] have been greater than 
Solomon or greater than Jonah, or have been the Lord of David, who was of 
the same substance as they were ? 75 


Such a statement, taken together with the Paulinisticelaborationin III, 
I9, 1, makes the foundation for Irenzus’s final dogmatic assertion: 


Those who assert that he was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph 
remaining in the bondage of the primal disobedience, are in a state of death 
having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving 
liberty through the Son, as he does himself declare: If the Son shall make 
you free, ye shall be free indeed” (III, 19 [I, 448)]. 


7? TRENZUS, Con. Haer., III, 21,10: “Et quemadmodum protoplastus ille Adam 
de rudi terra, et de adhuc virgine, (nondum enim pluerat Deus, et homo non erat 
operatus terram) habuit substantiam: et plasmatus est manu Dei, id est Verbo Dei 
(omnia enim per ipsum facta sunt) et sumpsit Dominus limum a terra, et plasmavit 
hominem: ita recapitulans in se Adam, ipse Verbum existens ex Maria, quae adhuc 
erat virgo, recte accipiebat generationem Adae recapitulationis. ef rolyvy 6 mp@ros 
"Addu toxe marépa dvOpwrov Kal é€& dvipds omépuaros éyevviOn elxds Fv kal rdv devTepov 
"Addu Aéyew € "Iwond yeyevvfjcbar: ef Se exetvos ex ys EAPbn. ddorns dé abrod 6 
Geds, Eder Kai Tov dvaxepadarovpevor els abrdov brd Tod Geod rerdacpuévov AvOpwrov, Thy abrhy 
éxelyy THs yevvnoews Exe duornta, els Th ody wad ov EaBe xodv 6 Beds, GAN? €x 
Maplas évnpynoe rv traow yevéoOa; iva wh &dAdn wrdots yévnrat unde Go 7d cwtduevov 
GX’ abros éxetvos dvaxepaawhn Tnpovwévns THs OuordryTos.” 

73 See also III, 21, 4 (I, 455); V, 19, 1 (I, 547); and V, 21, 1 (I, 584). 

74 See III, 19, 1 (I, 448); IV, 33, 11 (I, 509); V, 1, 1, 2, 3 (I, 527). 

75 Ibid., 1V, 33, 4: “Quemadmodum autem relinquet mortis generationem, si non 
in novam generationem mire et inopinate a Deo, in signum autem salutis, datam, 
quae est ex virgine per fidem, regenerationem? vel quam adoptionem accipient a 
Deo, permanentes in hac genesi, quae est secundum hominem in hoc mundo? Quo- 


modo autem plus quam Salomon, et plus quam Jonas habebat, et Dominus erat 
David, qui eiusdem cum ipsis fuit substantiae ?” 


76 Jbid., III, 19, 1: ‘“Rursus autem qui unde tantum hominem eum dicunt ex 
» 19, q 
Joseph generatum, perseverantes in servitute pristinae inobedientiae moriuntur: non- 


40 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 41 


We have traced the doctrine in Irenzus, noticing its multiform 
statement arising from the conviction of its great importance and the 
menacing features of the different forms of Gnosticism. ‘The appeal to 
Scripture is seen to be, in the case of prophecy at least, no more 
praiseworthy than that of Justin Martyr, while his appeal to the New 
Testament is much more straightforward, and constitutes a new feature 
in the study. The more distinctly theological argument is based upon 
a fanciful, though somewhat Pauline, analogy whose force is not felt 
today. The argument makes the virgin birth the basal and essential 
factor in constituting Jesus a fit and capable Savior for lost and pol- 
luted man, hence those who do not believe in the virgin birth are “in 
the bondage of the old disobedience” and “‘in a state of death.” Of 
course, the other and silent premise underlying this conclusion is that 
right belief concerning the nature of Christ is necessary to salvation. 

1. In conclusion it should be pointed out that, while Irenzus 
makes a copious use of the canonical infancy stories,” he has no refer- 
ence to the apocryphal accounts, although they would very naturally 
have been called for in such a passage as IV, 23, §1. Moreover, it 
would appear (I, 27, §2 [I, 352]) that, in the case of the heretic Mar- 
cion at least, there existed no apocryphal source of the kind which he 
needed for his denial of the miraculous generation of Jesus, so that it 
was necessary for him so to mutilate the gospel of Luke that it might 
suit his purpose. Nor is there evidence that any of the heretics knew 
of gospels other than the canonical to which to appeal in advancing 
or supporting their variant views. 

2. In his understanding of the virgin birth Irenzeus has passed 
clear away from the thought of a miraculous but real birth (devoid of 
the slightest intimation of pre-existence), such as the accounts in 
Matthew and Luke teach and Ignatius and Justin clearly, though not 
consistently, imply, and in his adoption of the view of the fourth 
gospel has converted the virgin birth into an advent or an incarnation 
in a more rigid and uniform sense than previously prevailed; e¢. g., 
Coniva Hanes.) 3, 25,1 (l;.'336) > UE, ‘oy-3: (3, 4a5))5 ELT, 12) 9G aa). 
But, at the same time, in his thinking the divine sonship and nature of 
Jesus were based upon the fact that God, and not man, was his father 
(TET, 21, $8:f 1, 453). 


dum commisti Verbo Dei Patris, neque per Filium percipientes libertatem, quemadmo- 
dum ipse ait: ‘Si Filius vos manumiserit vere liberi eritis.’ ”’ 


77. g., ill, 9, 2 and 3 (I, 423 ff.); III, 16, 2, 3, and 4 (I, 440 ff.); III, 21, 4 and 
5 (I, 452); IV, 23, 1 (1, 494); V, 25, 5 (I, 554). 
41 


42 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


3. Thus in Irenzeus we meet what is so far the clearest statement of 
Jesus’ derivation of divine nature from the fact that God is his father ; 
but Irenzeus’s chief contribution to the study is in the theological 
significance which he attributed to the virgin birth; for in his thinking 
it was only by such a birth that Jesus could be constituted the adequate 
Savior of mankind—and so far as his moral worth being sufficient fer 
se to constitute him Messiah and Son of God, Irenzus, making a bold 
advance from the position of the earliest apologists, asserted that the 
pre-eminence of Jesus and his unique moral worth were dependent 
upon the virgin birth. 

VII. TERTULLIAN (about 150-240 A. D.).—There are in Tertullian 
nearly a score of passages in which a statement of belief regarding the 
virgin birth is made. The most simple of these are: Vesling of Vir- 
gins, IV, 3, 1 (IV, 27); Monogamy, 8 (IV, 65); Against Praxeas, 2 
(III, 598), 26, 27 (III, 622 ff.); and Patience, 3 (III, 708). Other 
passages, which make some significant addition to the bare statement, 
are: Apol., 21 (III, 34), including a repudiation of the Greek myths; 
Soul, 26 (III, 207), with a reference to the meeting of Mary and Eliza- 
beth, and the prenatal testimony of John; Against Heretics, 36 (III, 
260), and Against. Marcion, V, 19 (III, 471), each included in the 
church’s statement of faith; Resurrection, 20 (III, 559), with emphasis 
upon the real humanity of Jesus; Against Valentinus, 27 (III, 516), 
stating the belief of Valentinus: 

His position being one which must be decided by prepositions ; in other 
words, he was produced éy means of (fer) a virgin rather than of(ex)a 
virgin! On the ground that, having descended into the Virgin rather in the 
manner of a passage through her than of a birth by her, he came into exist- 
ence through (fer) her, not of (ex) her—not experiencing a mother in her, 
but nothing more than a way. Upon this same Christ, therefore, so they say, 
the Savior descended in the sacrament of baptism in the likeness of a dove.”* 
There are also two references to the belief of Praxeas and the Patri- 
passionists: Against Praxeas, 17 (III, 617), and 1 (III, 597): 

He says that the Father himself came down into the Virgin, was himself 
born of her, himself suffered, indeed was himself Jesus Christ.” 

72TERTULLIAN, Adv. Valentinianos, XXVIII: “In praepositionum quaestionibus 
positum, id est per virginem, non ex virgine editum, quia delatus in virginem trans- 
meatoris potius quam generatoris more processerit: per ipsam, non ex ipsa; non matrem 
eam, sed viam passus. Super hunc itaque Christum devolasse tunc in baptismatis 
sacramento Sotorem per effigiem columbae.”’ 


29 TERTULLIAN, Adv. Praxeam, 1: “Ipsum dicit Patrem descendisse in Virginem, 
ipsum ex ea natum, ipsum passum, denique ipsum esse Jesum Christum.” 


42 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 43 


Of the statements here cited and quoted, that of Praxeas appears 
for the first time. The Patripassion theory undoubtedly arose from 
the difficulty of conceiving of a dual or triune God, and as a consistent 
effort to escape ditheism or tritheism. 

Somewhat akin to the superficial argument about terms,” and yet 
showing Tertullian’s rather scholastic reasoning in maintenance of the 
humanity of Christ, and, secondarily, of the virginity of Mary, is the 
passage in Against Marcion, IV, 10 (III, 358, 360). The argument is 
quite syllogistic: Christ cannot lie. He said he was the son of man. 
Therefore he had a human parent. But God was his father. There- 
fore Mary, his mother, was the human parent. But, if so, she was a 
virgin. Otherwise he had two fathers, a divine and a human one, the 
thought of which is ridiculous, like the stories of Castor and Hercules. 
Moreover, the prophecy of Isaiah is alone fulfilled by the exclusion 
of a human father and the acceptance of the virginity of Mary. 
If Marcion admits Christ to be the son of man through a human 
father, he thereby denies that he is son of God; if through a divine 
one also, he makes Christ the Hercules of fable; if through a human 
mother only, he concedes Tertullian’s point; if not through a human 
father or a human mother, he involves Christ in a lie.™ 


8 See Veiling of Virgins, 6 (IV, 31), and treatise on Prayer, 22 (III, 688). 


8 TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marcionem, IV, 10: “De filio hominis duplex est nostra 
praescriptio, neque mentiri posse Christum, ut se filium hominis pronuntiaret, si non 
vere erat; neque filium constitui, qui non sit natus ex homine, vel patre vel matre : 
atque ita discutiendum, cujus hominis filius accipi debeat, patris an matris. Si ex 
Deo patre est, utique non ex homine: si non ex homine, jam apparet quia ex virgine. 
Cui enim homo pater non datur, nec vir matri ejus deputabitur; porro cui vir non 
deputabitur, virgo est. Caeterum, duo jam patres habebuntur, Deus et homo, si non 
virgo sit mater. Habebit enim virum, ut virgonon sit ; et habendo virum, duos patres 
faciet, Deum et hominem, et qui et Dei et hominis esset filius. Talem, si forte, Cas- 
tori aut Herculi nativitatem tradunt fabulae. 

“Si haec ita distinguuntur, id est, si ex matre filius est hominis, quia ex patre non 
est; ex matre autem virgine, quia non ex patre homine; his erit Christus Isaiae, quem 
concepturam virginem praedicat. Qua igitur ratione admittas fillum hominis, Mar- 
cion, circumspicere non possum. Si patris hominis, negas Dei filium; si et Dei, 
Herculem de fabula facis Christum: si matris tantum hominis, meum concedis; si 
neque matris hominis, ergo nullius hominis, est filius, et necesse est mendacium 
admiserit, qui se quod non erat dixit. Unum potest angustiis tuis subvenire, si audeas 
aut Deum tuum patrem Christi hominem quoque cognominare, quod de Aeone fecit 
Valentinus ; aut virginem hominem negare, quod ne Valentinus quidem fecit. . . . . 

“Nam in illam necesse est amentiam tendat, ut et filium hominis defendat, nec 
mendacem eum faciat; et ex homine neget natum, ne filium virginis concedat 
Si natus ex homine est, ut filius hominis, corpus ex corpore est,” etc. 


43 


44 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


Such a line of reasoning has peculiar interest in that it shows how 
strenuously Tertullian could defend the real humanity of Christ— for 
this was Tertullian’s constant task—by an appeal to the virgin birth. 
Of like interest is his badly stated belief that the part played by God 
in the generation of Jesus was such as to utterly exc/wde human father- 
hood ; that God, though in no gross sense, was the substitute® for a 
human begetter ; that the dual nature of Christ depends simply upon 
his parentage— being divine, because God, and no man, was his 
father ; human, because Mary was his mother. The premises are that 
Christ is divine (this is not only admitted, but given an unwarranted 
emphasis by his heretical opponents); that his nature depends upon 
his parentage; that therefore that humanity which he, who could not 
lie, claimed for himself could not come from his father ; it must, 
therefore, come from his mother; but, granting the above, it could 
come from her only through the virgin birth. 

In The Flesh of Christ, chap. 23 (III, 541), there is a semi-scholastic 
attempt to show that the Virgin’s conception and parturition are the 
sign spoken of by Simeon, and long before by Isaiah ; and, moreover, 
that Mary, though a virgin, was in reality the purely human mother of 
the human Christ. The saying, “Every male that openeth the womb 
shall be called holy to the Lord,” is applicable solely to the Son of God, 
since only in the case of a virgin birth does a chi/d open the womb. 

There is a principle laid down in Ad Wationes, 3 (III, 131), which 
explains Tertullian’s belief as to the person of Christ, and, as tributary 
to that, the virgin birth also: 

It is a settled point that a god is born of a god, and that which lacks 
divinity is born of that which is not divine. 

This very simple philosophy is the clue to the “Son of God—son 
of man” passages such as Afol., 21 (III, 34, 35); Flesh of Christ, 5 
(III, 525), and especially 18 (III, 537). 

Turning to prophecy, we find Tertullian using it in much the same 
way as did Justin Martyr and Ireneus. In his Answer to Jews, 9 
(III, 161), he resorts to the already familiar argument that, apart from 
the virgin birth, the promise of a sign in the Immanuel prophecy“ is 
meaningless; and in Against Marcion, III, 12 (III, 331), he reiterates 
the same contention, and points out, moreover, as did Justin Martyr 

82 As opposed to this theory, see ORIGEN, De Principiis, I, 2, sec. 4 (IV, 247). 

83 TERTULLIAN, Ad Nationes, II, 3c: “ Scitum, deum e deo nasci, quemadmodum de 
non deo non deum.” 

84 Also Flesh of Christ, 17 (III, 536). 

44 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 45 


(Dia/., 77 ff.), that in the coming of the magi the remainder of the 
prophecy, as to receiving the riches of Damascus, etc., was fulfilled. 

In his Answer to Jews, 9 (III, 164), he demonstrates that, according 
to Isa. 11:1, 2, Jesus procures his Davidic descent through the virgin 
Mary. Chap. 21 of Zhe Flesh of Christ (III, 539) makes a combined 
‘argument from the Immanuel prophecy, the annunciation to Mary, 
and Elizabeth’s salutation to Mary, to show that she was the actual 
human mother of Jesus, through whom he was a descendant of David, 
and that from her he who was the Word of God derived his flesh. 
Tertullian’s use of ‘‘flesh” here is not synonymous with his use of 
“humanity” in the important reference in MJarcion, 1V,10. Here 
“flesh” is used in the literal sense to designate that with which the 
pre-existent Word clothed himself; there the thought of pre-existence is 
absent, and the dual nature of Christ is explained by his generation. 
The virgin birth is supported by an appeal to the question in Isa., 
chap. 53, ‘‘ Who shall declare his nativity?” from which Tertullian 
infers that no human being was aware of the nativity of Christ at his 
conception.” He also interprets the LXX of Ps. 110: 3 (Ex yaorpds 
mpo ewapdpov éyyevyod oe): “ Before the morning star did I beget thee 
from the womb”’—as referring both to the time of Christ’s birth and to 
the manner. ‘“‘I have begotten thee from the womb;’ that is to say, 
from a womb only, without a man’s seed, making it a condition of a 
fleshly body that it should come out of a womb.” 

In the more distinctive use of the New Testament the chief effort 
is, as in the foregoing, to emphasize the real humanity and Davidic 
descent of Christ rather than to substantiate his virgin birth. These 
three subjects, however, have a natural affinity for each other, and are 
often found in combination in Tertullian’s mind. His references* to 
Matt. fos IOM. 17.35 2 lim. 2:8; Gal. 338, ‘6, are. Grdmaagy 
instances of this use of the New Testament. The twentieth chapter 
on Zhe Flesh of Christ (III, 538) has along dissertation to prove that 
Christ was born of (ex) Mary, partaking of her flesh, as does any 
child from any mother. The Gnostic heretics, denying the reality 
of his body, contended that he was begotten zm (zz) Mary, but not 
of (ex) her, using for their purpose Matt. 1:20, Td yap év airy yer- 
vnbev ex mvevpards éotw ayiov. In reply, Tertullian quotes the é of 
Matt. 1:16 and Gal. 4: 4, “ made of a woman” (yevouevov éx yuvatkds), 
to good effect, but descends to his usually poor exegesis in the use of 

35See also Against Marcion, III, 20 (III, 338, 339). 

86 Answer to Jews, 13 (III, 171). 87 Flesh of Christ, 22 (111, 540). 

45 


46 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


Ps. 22:9, 10, “Thou art he that didst draw me out of my mother’s 
womb.” Equally indefensible is his exegesis of the singular misread- 
ing® which he maintains in John 1:13, and tortures into denying 
Jesus’ birth from sexual intercourse, while admitting or affirming that 
he was born of real flesh. 

The Gnostics were also using Matt. 12: 48 to support their denial 
of the reality of Jesus’ body,” contending that those who announced 
the presence of his mother and brethren did so to test him, and to 
determine whether he were actually of a human family, which fact, 
they claimed, was practically denied by his reply. But Tertullian’s 
readiness to interpret figurative language, however fatal in most 
instances, did him good service in this. 

It is difficult to believe that Tertullian could have been as ignorant 
of the gospels as would appear from what a strict interpretation of his 
language implies; viz., that all four of the gospels assert the virgin birth. 

Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instil faith into us; 
whilst of apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterward. These all start 
with the same principles of faith, so far as relates to the one only God the 
Creator, and his Christ, born of the Virgin, fulfilling the law and the prophets. 
Now, of the authors whom he possesses, Marcion® seems to have singled out 
Luke for his mutilating process. Luke, however, was not an apostle, but 
only an apostolic man; not a master, but a disciple, and so inferior toa 
master —at least as far subsequent to him as the apostle whom he followed 
[Paul] was subsequent to the others.” 

The possibility that the gospels of John and Mark, originally or at 
an early date, contained stories of the virgin birth might be entertained 
here, were we certain that Tertullian wrote this passage with a full 
consciousness of just what he was saying, and if we were, furthermore, 
certain of what he meant by “These all s¢ar¢ with the same principles 
of faith .... (how that he was) born of the Virgin.” Does he 
mean that all four gospels make this fact the foundation of faith in 

88 Flesh of Christ, 19 (111,537). Also IREN&US, Against Heresies, III, 19,2 (1-449). 

89 Against Marcion, IV, 19 (III, 377, 378). Also, Flesh of Christ, 7 (III, 527). 

% The gospel of Marcion began with Luke 3:1, followed immediately by 4:31- 
37, then 4: 16, with numerous omissions. 

9* TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marcionem,1V, 2. ‘Denique nobis fidem, nobis fidem ex 
apostolis Joannes et Matthaeus insinuant; ex apostolicis, Lucas et Marcus instaurant, 
isdem regulis exorsi, quantum ad unicum Deum attinet Creatorem, et Christum ejus, 
natum ex Virgine, supplementum Legis et Prophetarum..... Nam ex iis com- 
mentatoribus quos habemus, Lucam videtur Marcion elegisse, quem caederet. Porro 


Lucas non apostolus sed apostolicus; non magister, sed discipulus ; utque magistro 
minor; certe tanto posterior, quanto posterioris apostoli sectator, Pauli sine dubio,” etc. 


46 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 47 


Christ? Or does he mean that each evangelist literally begins his 
gospel with the account of Jesus’ birth from the Virgin? The con- 
text, which is dealing with actual narratives and attempting to show 
their relative value, supports the literal interpretation by which we 
understand Tertullian to say that each of the four gospels begins by 
setting forth the fact that Christ was born of the Virgin. 

But, since Tertullian is wholly unsupported in this respect by the 
Fathers or versions, we are compelled to reject his statement as being 
rather free and exaggerated, or, indeed, to explain it upon the basis of 
his teaching as elsewhere represented. ‘This can be done, and is per- 
haps the true solution of the difficulty. It was seen that, according to 
the treatise Against Marcion, IV, 10, a postulation of the divinity of 
Jesus made the virgin birth necessary as the explanation of his 
humanity. To assert the former was to affirm the latter, and it was by 
the unique birth of Jesus that his dual nature was explained. Now, as 
Tertullian looks at the matter, while it is true that only Matthew and 
Luke give, at the beginning of their gospels, the actual narratives of 
the peculiar birth of Jesus, both Mark and John clearly assert the 
fact which is inseparable from the virgin birth, viz., that God is the 
father of Jesus. Thus, if Tertullian accepted the uncertain reading of 
viod Oeod in Mark 1:1, which reading Irenzus before him had used, 
and resorted, as he usually did, to the singular and erroneous interpre- 
tation of John 1 : 13, which makes God the begetter of Christ, or even 
to the assertion of the divine sonship as set forth in John 1: 18—then, 
to all intents and purposes, and by inevitable deduction, the second 
and fourth gospels do, in his opinion, start with the assertion that 
Christ was born of a virgin. 

It is interesting to notice, in passing, his comparative valuation of 
Mark and Luke, especially of the latter, and of Paul. His low valua- 
tion of Luke was no doubt for the purpose of weakening Marcion’s 
position, as was also his unwarranted assertion regarding the other 
gospels. It was as much as saying: ‘‘ Marcion may do what he likes 
with the gospel of Luke, but he still has the other and better gospels 
to reckon with, if he wishes to discard the true nativity of Christ and 
the virgin birth.” 

An interesting point noticed in the writers preceding Tertullian is 
that of the analogy between the virgin birth and the Genesis story of 
creation, between Mary and Eve. In chap. 17, on The Flesh of Christ 
(III, 536), in connection with an argument to prove the reality of the 
flesh of Christ, Tertullian makes an elaborate use of this analogy: 

47 


48 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


Now it will be first necessary to show what previous reason there was for 
the Son of God's being born ofa virgin. He who was going to consecrate a 
new order of birth must himself be born after a novel fashion. . . . . Accord- 
ingly a virgin did conceive and bear Emmanuel, God with us. This is the 
new nativity; a man is born in God. And in this man God was born, taking 
the flesh of an ancient race, without the help, however, of the ancient seed, 
in order that he might reform it with a new seed, that is, ina spiritual manner, 
and cleanse it by the removal of all its ancient stains. But the whole of this 
innovation was prefigured, as was the case in all instances, in ancient type, 
the Lord being born as man bya dispensation in which a virgin was the 
medium. The earth was still in a virgin state, reduced as yet by no human 
labor, with no seed as yet cast into its furrows, when, as we are told, God 
made man out of it into a living soul. As, then, the first Adam is thus taken 
from the ground, it is a just inference that the second Adam likewise, as the 
apostle has told us, was formed by God into a quickening spirit out of the 
ground—in other words, out of a flesh which was unstained as yet by any 
human generation.” But that I may lose no opportunity of supporting my 
argument from the name of Adam, why is Christ called Adam by the apostle, 
unless it be that, as man, he was of that earthly origin? And even reason 
here maintains the same conclusion, because it was by just the contrary opera- 
tion that God recovered his own image and likeness, of which he had been 
robbed by the devil. For it was while Eve was yet a virgin that the ensnaring 
word had crept into her ears which was to build the edifice of death. Into a 
virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that word of God which was 
to raise the fabric of life, so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex 
might, by the selfsame sex, be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed 
the serpent, so Mary believed Gabriel. The delinquency which the one occa- 
sioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. But (it will be said) Eve 
did not at the devil’s word conceive in her womb. Well, she at all events 
conceived; for the devil’s word afterward became as seed to her that she 
should conceive as an outcast and bring forth in sorrow. Indeed, she gave 
birth to a fratricidal devil; whilst Mary, on the contrary, bare one who was 
one day to secure salvation to Israel, his own brother after the flesh and the 
murderer of himself. God, therefore, sent down into the virgin’s womb his 
Word, as the good brother who should blot out the memory of the evil 
brother. Hence it was necessary that Christ should come forth for the salva- 
tion of man in that condition of flesh into which man had entered ever since 
his condemnation. 

92 See also Answer to Jews, 12 (III, 169); Flesh of Christ, 16 (III, 536); Resurrec- 
tion, 49 (III, 582). ; 

93 TERTULLIAN, Lid. de Carne Christi, XVII: “Ante omnia autem commendanda 
erit ratio quae praefuit, ut Dei filius de virgine nasceretur. Nove nasci debebat novae 
nativitatis dedicator, de qua signum daturus Dominus ab Isaia praedicabatur. Quod 
est istud signum? Ecce virgo concipiet in utero, et pariet filium (Isa. vii). Concepit 


48 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 49 


The apparent ultimate dogmatic statement of Tertullian is found in 
his discourse Against Marcion, IV, 36 (III, 411): 


Whosoever wishes to see Jesus the son of David must believe in him 
through the virgin’s birth. He who will not believe this will not hear from 
him the salutation, ‘‘ Thy faith hath saved thee.’”’ And so he will remain blind, 
falling into antithesis after antithesis which mutually destroy each other, just 
as the blind man leads the blind down into the ditch. 


There is not as much, however, in this saying regarding the virgin 
birth as would at first sight be supposed. For the context shows that 
the point at issue is not the virgin birth, but rather Jesus’ Davidic 
descent and his possession of an actual body. In support of these last 
two contentions Tertullian appeals to the healing of the blind man at the 
entrance to Jericho, Luke 18: 35-43. The man persistently cried out: 
“Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me!” In response to which, 
and thus in recognition of his Davidic descent, Jesus performed the cure. 

It must be remembered also that in the writings of Tertullian the 
term “the virgin” is, through the passing over of what was formerly a 
descriptive adjective into a proper name, frequently used to designate 


igitur virgo et peperit Emmanuelem, nobiscum Deum. Haec est nativitatis nova, 
dum homo nascitur in Deo; in quo homine Deus natus est, carne atque seminis sus- 
cepta, sine semine antiquo ut illam novo semine, id est spiritaliter reformaret exclusis 
antiquitatis sordibus, expiatam. Sed tota novitas ista, sicut et in omnibus, de veteri 
figura est, rationali per virginem dispositione Domino nascente. Virgo erat adhuc 
terra nondum opere compressa, nondum sementi subacta: ex ea hominem factum 
accepimus a Deo in animam vivam. Igitur si primus Adam de terra traditur, merito 
sequens, vel novissimus Adam, ut Apostolus dixit, proinde de terra, id est, carne non- 
dum generationi resignata, in spiritum vivificantem a Deo est prolatus. Et tamen, ne 
mihi vacet incursus nominis Adae, unde Christus Adam ab Apostolo dictus est, si 
terreni non fuit census homo ejus? Sed et hic ratio defendit, quod Deus imaginem 
et similitudinem suam, a diabolo captam, aemula operatione recuperavit. In virginem 
enim adhuc Evam irrepserat verbum aedificatorium mortis; in virginem aeque intro- 
ducendum erat Dei Verbum exstructorium vitae: ut quod per ejus modi sexum 
abierat in perditionem, per eumdem sexum redigeretur in salutem. Crediderat Eva 
serpenti: credidit Maria Gabrieli. Quod illa credendo deliquit, haec credendo 
delevit. Sed Eva nihil tunc concepit in utero ex diaboli verbo. Imo concepit. Nam 
exinde ut abjecta pareret, et in doloribus pareret, verbum diaboli semen illi fuit. 
Enixa est denique diabolum fratricidam. Contra, Maria eum edidit, qui carnalem 
fratrem Israel, interemptorem suum, salvum quandoque praestaret. In vulvam ergo 
Deus Verbum suum detulit, bonum fratrem, ut memoriam mali fratris eraderet. Inde 
prodeundum fuit Christo ad salutem hominis, quo homo jam damnatus intraverat.” 

94 TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marcionem, IV, 36: “Qui vult videre Jesum, David filium, 
credat per Virginis censum. Qui non ita credet, non audiet ab illo: Fides tua te 
salvum fecit. Atque ita caecus remanebit, ruens in antithesim, ruentem et ipsam 
antithesim. Sic enim caecus caecum deducere solet.” 


49 


50 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


Mary. This is quite similar to the more familiar transition from Jesus 
the Christ to Jesus Christ, and finally to Christ, as the personal proper 
name. Bearing in mind the context and the interchangeable use of 
“The Virgin” and “ Mary,” this passage is taken to mean that, by the 
analogy of what took place at the blind man’s confession and request, 
whoever wishes to see Jesus spiritually (savingly) must believe that he 
was actually born into this world with real flesh, being the son of Mary, 
David’s descendant. To deny this is to remain in spiritual blindness 
and to perish. 

Evidently Tertullian’s final word as to the condition of those who 
disbelieve in the vzrgim birth is not as specific and unmistakable as 
that of Irenzus.% This is due, however, to a difference in the ends 
sought by his polemic, and hence in his emphasis, rather than to differ- 
ent conviction as to the essentialness of belief in the virgin birth. For, 
very clearly, it is only by means of the virgin birth that he is able to 
give what seems to him a consistent explanation of the humanity and 
the divinity of Jesus. 

1. A review of the material presented by Tertullian will show that 
for purposes of argument he uses the canonical infancy stories only — 
Ans. to Jews, 9 (III, 164); Soul, 26 (III, 207); Marcion, III, 12 (III, 
331); zbtd., V, 9 (III, 448)—and that, in so far as the apocryphal gos- 
pels taught the perpetual virginity of Mary, he was uninfluenced by 
them and insisted upon a real birth (Flesh of Christ, 23 (III, 541)). On 
the other hand, Tertullian does not wholly repudiate the use of other 
gospels of the Lord’s nativity which he recognizes as in circulation, 
but for himself abstains from anything but a very sparing use of them. 
(Against Praxeas, 26 [III, 632].) His reference, like that of Irenzeus to 
the mutilation of Luke by Marcion, indicates that the heretics also 
recognized the canonical gospels as the basis of appeal. 

2. Tertullian is divided in his own mind between the representa- 
tion of pre-existence as made in the fourth gospel and the generation 
of a new being as given in the first and third gospels. Both thoughts 
are expressed by him, but not harmonized. 

3. Perhaps Tertullian’s increment to the study lies chiefly in the 
fact of his noteworthy use of the virgin birth to prove the humanity 
of Jesus, and, secondarily, in his throwing light upon the increasing 
extra-canonical sources; while at the same time his straight-going 
theory of imparted nature as in human generation keeps his argument 
in a rather pagan sphere. 

9 Against Heresies, 111, 19 (1, 448, 449). 

50 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH . 51 


VIII. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (died about 220 A. D.)* seldom 
refers to the virgin birth. A sentence from Zhe J/ustructor, 1, 6 (II, 220), 
gives very clear evidence of the increasing exaltedness of Mary, how- 
ever, and of her trend toward deity: 

The universal Father is one, and one the universal Word; the Holy Spirit 

is one and the same everywhere, and one is the only virgin mother.” 
It is true that Clement immediately proceeds to liken Mary to the 
church, and even to identify her with it in his allegorical cast of think- 
ing; but, nevertheless, such an utterance serves as an index of the 
direction in which the current of thought has set. More significant is 
Stromata, VII, 16 (II, 551): 

But, as appears, many even down to our own time regard Mary, on 
account of the birth of her child, as having been in the puerperal state, 
although she was not. For some say that after she brought forth she was 
found, when examined, to be a virgin. Now such, to us, are the Scriptures 
of the Lord, which gave birth to the truth and continue virgin in the conceal- 
ment of the mysteries of the truth. 

This illustration, colored by the rather occult sentiment of the “true 
Gnostics,” who recognize “the son of the Omnipotent, not by his flesh 
conceived in the womb, but by his Father’s own power,” serves to 
verify the tendency already noted, and to indicate the significant pres- 
ence of apocryphal material. Its seeming conflict with the defense of 
physical generation made in Stromaza, III, 17 (II, 400), is not to be 
wondered at in a treatise that makes no attempt at homogeneity and 
consistency. To the Gnostic the spiritual lesson is everything. Inci- 
dentally we get a few of the underlying facts, and from these, though 
scanty, we must reconstruct, as far as possible, Clement’s theory of the 
virgin birth. 

1. It is evident that he was acquainted with both the Johannine and 
the synoptic sources ; and it is equally clear that he was influenced by 
some apocryphal source or sources” similar to the gospel of James. 

2. He believed in the pre-existence— Strom., VI, 15 (II, 508)—as 


96 EusEBIus, Church History, Book V, 11, and Book VI, 6, 13. 


97 els wéev 6 TOv bdwv Tlaryp. els 5é kal 6 THv Skwy Adyos. xalrd Ilvedua 7d &yrov ev 
kal 70 ard maytaxod. pla dé udyn yap uATnp wapbévos. 


988CLEMENTIS ALEXANDRINI Stromatum, Lib. VII, cap. xvi: ’AAN’, ws Zorxer, 
Tots moddots kal wéxpe viv Soxe? 7Mapiapy Aex eivar Sia THY TOD mardlov yévnowy ovK ovca 
exo. Kal yap pera 7d Texely adrhv uawwheioay pacl rives wapOévov evpeOfvar. Tovadrat 
& jytvy at xupraxal Tpapal rijv ddjOecav drorlkrovcat, kal pévovcar mapOévor wera Tis 
émixptgews TOV THs adnOelas uvoTnplwr. 


99See mention of “‘Gospel according to the Hebrews,” Strom., II, 9. 


51 


52 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


also in the real birth of Jesus—Strom., III, 17 (II, 400); but just how 
much of miracle the apocryphal sources had instilled into his belief, in 
addition to the miraculous conception of the canonical accounts, can- 
not be definitely decided. Judging by Strom., VII, 16, he was attracted 
toward a belief in the miraculous dzrth as well as in the miraculous 
conception. 

3. Clement’s increment to the study is noteworthy, inasmuch as 
he is the first of our contributors to look with decided favor upon the 
apocryphal material; and, while he uses it for illustration chiefly, it is 
nevertheless at the church doors waiting for admission. It had not 
long to wait. In fact, the exaltation toward deity which with Clement 
begins to be attributed to Mary is undoubtedly due to the influence of 
the apocryphal material and the traditions embodied therein. 

IX. ORIGEN™ (185-254) gives frequent statements of the doc- 
trines of the virgin birth, including the orthodox, the heretical, and 
what may be called the Gnostic-orthodox. In the first class are such 
passages as De Prin., preface (IV, 240) and II, 6 (IV, 281); Against 
Celsus, I, 7 (IV, 399), and Com. Jno., I, 39, and X, 23 (IX, 315, 403); 
and also Agaznst Celsus, II, 25 (IV, 473), where the reality of the body 
of Jesus is emphasized in comparison with the mystic entrance of the 
spirit of Apollo into the priestess of the Pythian cave. In the second 
class is the belief of Celsus stated in Against Celsus, I, 59 (IV, 427); 
and a reference to the common belief of Jesus’ contemporaries in Com. 
Mt., X, 20, and Jno., VI, 7 (1X, 427, 355). In the third class there is 
a passage which shows how easily the “true’’ Gnostic could satisfy 
himself in the matter of Jesus’ parentage through his ready idealizing 
and spiritualizing faculty. It serves as an indication of the fact that, 
apart from precise historic reality, the semi-Gnostic was able to wor- 
ship Christ as the supreme spiritual ideal, and his liability to error was 
never in the direction of subtracting those things which made for the 
divinity of Jesus. 

If anyone should lend credence to the gospel according to the Hebrews, 
where the Savior himself says, ‘‘ My mother the Holy Spirit took me just now 
by one of my hairs and carried me off to the great Mount Tabor,” he will have 
to face the difficulty of explaining how the Holy Spirit can be the mother of 
Christ when it was itself brought into existence through the Word. But 
neither the passage nor this difficulty is hard to explain. For if he who does 
the will of the Father in heaven is Christ’s brother and sister and mother, 
and if the name of brother of Christ may be applied, not only to the race of 


100 RUSEBIUS, Church History, V1, 2-4, 8, 16, 19, 23, 30, 32, 36. 
52 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 53 


men, but to beings of diviner rank than they, then there is nothing absurd in 
the Holy Spirit’s being his mother, everyone being his mother who does the 
will of the Father in heaven." (Com. Jno., II, 6 [IX, 329].) 


But the statement of the theories with respect to the parentage of 
Jesus is incomplete without noticing the more distinctively Jewish con- 
tentions which cause Origen to pass over more perceptibly into the 
region of argument and refutation. A common Jewish story is repre- 
sented in Against Celsus, 1, 28 (1V, 408): 


For he represents him disputing with Jesus, and confuting him, as he 
thinks, on many points ; and in the first place he accuses him of having 
invented his birth from a virgin, and upbraids him with having been born in 
a Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence 
by spinning, and who was turned out-of-doors by her husbund, a carpenter 
by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven 
away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave 
birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who, having hired himself out as a ser- 
vant in Egypt, on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some 
miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, 
returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means 
of these proclaimed himself a god.”’ *? 


An elaboration of this story and its refutation are found in chaps. 
32 and 33: 


But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the 
mother of Jesus and saying that when she was pregnant she was turned out- 
of-doors by the carpenter, to whom she had been betrothed, as having been 
guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Pan- 


1X ORIGENIS Comment. in Joan., II, 6: ’Eav 62 mpocleral tis 7d Kad’ ‘EfSpatous 
Evayyuor, 2v0a abrds 6 Zwrhp dno. “Apre ZaBé we 4 uAtnp pov 7d dycov Ivetua év 
pla r&v Tprx@v pov, kal améveyxé pe els TO pos Td wéya OaBwp. éwaropjce TOs ujtrnp 
Xpicrod 7d Gta Tod Adyou yeyernuévoy Ilvetua a&ytov eivar Stvarar. Taira dé cal rodro 
od Xaderov éepunvetoa, El yap 6 rorBy 7d OéAnua Tod Ilwpds Tod év Tots obpavots ade- 
pos kal ddehpy Kal ujrnp éorly abtod, kal POdver Td AdeAPds XpicTod Svoua od pdvov éri 
7) TOv avOpmirwv yévos, GANG Kal él Ta ToUTOU Oedrepa. ovdév ATowov EoTat udddov 
waons xpnuatifovons untpos Xpicrod did 7d worety Tb O€Anua TOD ev Tots o'pavots Ilarpés, 
7 IveOua 7d a&y.ov elvar unrépa. 


1022 ORIGENIS Contra Celsum,1, 28: pera tadra mpocwroroe lovdatov ai’t@ diade- 
youevov, TS Inool cal édéyxovra adrov rept woAAGy wey, ws olerar, mpOTov dé, ws wAaca- 
pévou abrov Thy éx mapbévou yéveowv. dvecdifer 5° a’t@ kal émi T@ Ex kwuns adbrdv yeyovévar 
*Tovdaikas, Kat dd yuvaixds éyxwplouv kal menxpas, kal xepynridds dyor 8 abrhy kal brd 
Tov Yhuavros, TEKTOVOS THY TéxYyV byTOs, éEeGoOar, EXeyxXOeioay ws peworxeupévyny, elra 
Aéxet, ws ExBAnOetca bd Tod dvipds, kal rAavwuévyn arluws cxbriov eyévynoe Tdv Inoody. 
Kat re obros 61a wevlay els AYyurov picOapvijcas Kaxet duvduedy Tivwy wecpadels, ép’ als 
Alytrrot ceuvivovra:, émavnddev év rats Suvdpeot péya ppovdr, kal dc’ adras Gedy avroy 
avnyopeuce. 


53 


54 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


thera ;*°3 and let us see whether those who have blindly concocted these 
fables about the adultery of the Virgin with Panthera and her rejection by 
the carpenter did not invent these stories to overturn his miraculous concep- 
tion by the Holy Ghost: for they could have falsified the history in a different 
manner, on account of its extremely miraculous character, and not have 
admitted, as it were against their will, that Jesus was born of no ordinary 
human marriage. It was to be expected, indeed, that those who would not 
believe the miraculous birth of Jesus would invent some falsehood. And 
their not doing this in a credible manner, but their preserving the fact that it 
was not by Joseph that the Virgin conceived Jesus, rendered the falsehood 
very palpable to those who can understand and detect such inventions. Is it 
at all agreeable to reason that he who dared to do so much for the human 
race in order that, as far as in him lay, all the Greeks and barbarians who 
were looking for divine condemnation might depart from evil and regulate 
their entire conduct in a manner pleasing to the Creator of the world, should 
not have had a miraculous birth, but one the vilest and most disgraceful of 
all? And I will ask of them as Greeks, and particularly of Celsus, who 
either holds or not the sentiments of Plato, and at any rate quotes them, 
whether he who sends souls down into the bodies of men, degraded him who 
was to dare such mighty acts, and to teach so many men, and to reform so 
many from the mass of wickedness in the world, to a birth more disgraceful 
than any other, and did not rather introduce him into the world through a 
lawful marriage. Or, is it not more in conformity with reason that every 
soul, for certain mysterious reasons (I speak now according to the opinions 
of Pythagoras and Plato and Empedocles, whom Celsus frequently names), 
is introduced into a body and introduced according to its deserts and former 
actions? It is probable, therefore, that this soul also which conferred more 
benefit by its residence in the flesh than that of many men (to avoid prejudice 
I do not say “all” ), stood in need of a body not only superior to others, but 
invested with all excellent qualities? (33) . . . . By act of adultery between 
Panthera and the Virgin? Why, from such unhallowed intercourse there 
must rather have been brought some fool to do injury to mankind—a teacher 
of licentiousness and wickedness and other evils, and not of temperance and 
righteousness and the other virtues ! *™ 

103 Celsus’s statement of the infidelity of Mary, affirming that the father of Jesus 
was a soldier, by name Panthera, appears also in the Talmud, where the name is trans- 
literated into Pandera. J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON (Zext and Studies, Vol. I, No. 1, 
p. 25) thinks that this name is simply a Greek anagram on the word map@évos, similar to 
“the literary tricks of that time.” “Everything that we know of the dogmatics of 
the second century agrees with the belief that at that period the virginity of Mary was 
a part of the formulated Christian belief. Nor need we hesitate, in view of the 
antiquity of the Panthera fable, to give the doctrine a place in the creed of Aristides.” 


104QRIGENIS Contra Celsum, I, 32: "AAG yap éravédwuev els Thy Tov "Ivdalov 


mpoowmorotav, év } dvayéyparrac 7 Tod "Inood uArnp ws éEwobeioa bd Tod uynorevoa- 


54 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 55 


Origen’s polemic tactics in this passage are as good as his informa- 
tion and defense are imperfect in the following: Against Celsus, I, 37 
(IV, 412): 


But as a further answer to the Greeks, who do not believe in the birth of 
Jesus from a virgin, we have to say that the Creator has shown by the genera- 
tion of several kinds of animals that what he has done in the existence of one 
animal he could do if it pleased him in that of others, and also of man him- 
self. For it is ascertained that there is a certain female animal which has no 
intercourse with a male, as writers on animals say is the case with vultures, 
and that this animal without sexual intercourse preserves the succession of 
race. What incredibility is there, therefore, in supposing that, if God wished 
to send a divine teacher to the human race, he caused him to be born in some 
manner different from the common way? Nay, according to the Greeks 
themselves, all men were not born of a man and woman. For, if the world 
has been created, as many even of the Greeks are pleased to admit, then the 
first men must have been produced, not from sexual intercourse, but from 
the earth, in which spermatic elements existed ; which, however, I consider 
more incredible than that Jesus was born like other men so far as regards 
the half of his birth. And there is no absurdity in employing Grecian his- 


pévou adrhny TéxTovos, EeyxGetoa ert porxela Kal tTlxrovoa dé Tivos orpidrov IavOjpa 
Totvoua: Kal tOwuev ef uh TUPAGs of pvOowoincavres Thy porxelay THS wapOévov Kal Tod 
TlavOypa kai rov réxtova éEwoduevov avThnyv Tatra mdvra avérdacav emt Kadaipéce Tis 
mapaddéou ard aylov mvevuaros cvANjWews. edUvavTo yap &AdAws Wevdorojoa did 7d 
opbdpa mapddotov rhv ictoplay Kal wh womepel dxovclws cvyKatabécbac Ste ovK amd 
cuvjOwy dvOpdros yduwv 6 Inoods éyevviOn. Kal dxddoubby ye Hv Tovs wh cvyxarabeué- 
vous TH mapaddéw yevéres TOD "Inood mAdoae Te Weddos: 7d Se uh WiBavds avrods Todro 
Tothoat GANG wera TOD TypHoa Bre ovK dd Tod "Iwohp wapbévos cuvéhaBe rdv "Incodv, 
Tots dkovey Kal éhéyxetv dvarAdouara Suvayuévors évapyeés nv evdos. apa yap etovyov 
Tov Tocaidra brép Tod yévous Tv avOpdrwv To\ujoavTa, iva Td bcov ém’ air@ wdvres 
"EdAnves kal BdpBapo xplow Oelav mpocdoxhoarres droctGou pev THs Kaxlas mdvra dé 
mpatTwoty dpeckdvrws TO Tv Srwv Snuscoupy@, wapddotov wev wh ox nxévar yéverwy Tracey 
5é yevécewv rapavouwrdrny kal aloxlornv; ép& 5é ws mpds “EAXnvas cal udduora Kédgop, 
etre ppovodyra etre wh, wAHv TwapariOéuevov Ta IAdrwvos: apa 6 Karawéurwy Wuxas els 
avOporuv cwpara Tov TocatTa ToAuHGOYTA Kal TocovToUs Siddtovra Kal dd THs xUocews 
THs Kata THv Kaklay peracTHocovra ToNovs dvOpdrwy éml Thy wacav aloxporépav yéveowy 
ba, unde bia yduwv yrnolwv abrov eloayaywy els rov TSv dvOpdrwv Blov; # eUNoydrepov 
éxdoTnv Wuxhv kard Tivas amroppjrous Nébyous (Aéyw Sé Tadra viv kara IvOaydpay kal 
TAdrwra cal "Eumedoxdéa, ods rodddxis dvduacev 6 Kédoos), eloxpwwouévny owuare Kar’ 
dilav eloxplvecOac kal kara Ta& mpdrepa HOn; elkds odv Kal Tadrnv Thy Wuxhy, woANGy 
(iva ph cvvaprdferyv Sox, Néywv wdvtwv) dvOpdrwy Spedipwrépay TO Bly TSv avOpdrwv 
érdnuotoay, dedenr0at cdparos, ov udvoy ws év dvOpwrlvos cHuacer Siadépovros GANG Kal 
Tov wadvTwy KpelTTovos.— 33: dd IlavOypa poryevoavTos Kal mapbévov morxevbelons; ’Ex 
yap ToovTwr dvdyvwv plkewy 2dec maddov dvbnrdv tia, Kal émiBraBH Tots dvOpwrors 
S:ddoKadov akodaclas kal déixlas kal TO Norv Kaxdv yevérOat odxl 5é cwppoctyys Kal 
Sixacocbyns Kal TOv Noir Gv dper Gr. 


55 


56 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


tories to answer Greeks with a view to showing that we are not the only per- 
sons who have recourse to miraculous narratives of this kind. For some 
have thought fit, not in regard to ancient and heroic narratives, but in regard 
to events of very recent occurrence, to relate as a possible thing that Plato *s 
was the son of Amphictione, Ariston being prevented from having marital 
intercourse with his wife until she had given birth to him with whom she was 
pregnant by Apollo. And yet these are veritable fables, which have led to 
the invention of such stories concerning a man whom they regarded as pos- 
sessing greater wisdom and power than the multitude, and as having received 
the beginning of his corporeal substance from better and diviner elements 
than others, because they thought that this was appropriate to persons who 
were too great to be human beings. And since Celsus has introduced the 
Jew disputing with Jesus and tearing in pieces, as he imagines, the fiction of 
his birth from a virgin, comparing the Greek fables about Danae, and 
Melanippe,’” and Auge,’ and Antiope,*? our answer is that such language 
becomes a buffoon, and not one who is writing in a serious tone.**° 


105 427-347 B.C. 706 Made pregnant by Jupiter by means of a golden shower. 


707 Made pregnant by Hippotes, and gave birth to olus, metamorphosed into a 
mare and placed among the stars. 


18 Daughter of Aleus of Tegea, and mother of Telephus by Hercules. 
7°99 The mother of Anthion by Jupiter. 


10 ORIGENIS Contra Celsum,1, 37: “Eri dé mpds “EXXnvas dexréov, dreodvras TH 
éx map0évou yevéce: To "Inood, dre 6 Gnucoupyds év TH TH Torkidwy (Sw yevéce Zdectev 
bre Hv adrg BovdrAnbévre Suvardv wovjoar Sep ep’ Evds Sov Kal Ex’ Grdwv xal ér’ autdv 
Tay avOpurwy. evploxerar dé Tiva TOv SSwv Ojrea, uh Exovra &ppevos xorvwvlay, ws ol 
mepl SSwv dvaypdwavtes Aéyouor mwepl yur: Kal rodro Td (Gov xwpls uitews ote rhy 
diadox hv Tv yevav. Tl obv mapddotov, el BoudyOels 6 eds Oetby Tiva SiddoKadov wéupac 
T@ yévee TOv dvOpsrwv werolnxev dvtl orepyatixod you, TOO éx ultews TSv appévwy 
Tats yuvartt, [rocjoac] d\Xw tpdrw yevéobar Tov Abyov Tod TexOnoouevov; Kal Kar’ 
avrovs dé rods “EAAnvas od mdvres AvOpwrot é dvdpds Kal yuvackds éyévorTo. el yap ‘yevn- 
Tbs éoriv 6 Kécpos, ws Kal rodXots ‘EAAj yw Hperev, dvdyKn Tods mpwrous uh €k cuvovelas 
yeyovévat XN’ ard yijs, orepuatixGy Abywv ovordvrwy év TH YD* Sep oluac mapadots- 
Tepov elvat ToD e€& Hulcous duolws Tots Novrots dvOpwras yevérOar Tov "Incody. ovdéev 5 
&romov mpods “EdAnvas Kat ‘EAAnviKals icroplais xphoacbat, iva uh SoxGpuer ubvor TH wapa- 
50fG ioropig ra’ry Kexpjoba. “Edote ydp Tio od wepl dpxalwy tidy ioropidy Kal 
NpwikGv adda Kal wepl rivwv xOés Kal mpanv yevoudvwy dvaypdyar ws Suvardv Sri Kal 
Tiddrwv dard rijs "Audixridvns yéyove, kwrvbévros Tod ’Aplatwvos airy cuvenOeiv, Ews 
dmoxujoe Tov €& ’Amé\\wvos orapévra. adda Tadra wev GAnOGs dP, Kivpoavres els 
70 dvamddoat To.odrd Te epi dvdpds, dv évducfov pelfova THv mwoddGv éxovra coplay Kal 
Otvaywy Kal awd kperTrévwv Kal Oeotépwv orepudtwv Thy apxhy THs cveTrdcews TOO obparos 
elAnpévar, ws ToUG’ apudfov Tots pelfoory 7) Kara dvOpwrov, émel 5é Tov Iovdaiov 6 Kédcos 
elatyyaye Staheysuevov TO Inoot xal diacvporvra Tiv, ws olerar, mpoorolnoww ris éx mapbe- 
vou yevécews avrov, pépovra rods ‘EAAnuKkods pOous mept Aavdns cat Medavlrrns xal 
Abyns xal “Avridrns dexréov br. Tadra Bwuordxw Empere TA phuara Kal od cmovddtorre 
év TH dmayyenia. 


56 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 57 


In Against Celsus, I, 39 (IV, 413), mention is made of the sarcastic 
inquiry of Celsus as to just why God decided to have intercourse with 
this particular woman, but in the opinion of Origen such an irreverent 
question merits no reply. There is an argument in Against Celsus, II, 
69 (IV, 459), based upon the burial of Jesus in the new tomb, to show 
that by analogy it was fitting for him to be conceived, not by ordinary 
generation, but of a virgin. 

As would be expected, Origen’s argument in defense of the virgin 
birth causes him to make the ordinary appeal to prophecy, which he 
regards as being minutely predictive.** The Immanuel passage is 
used in Against Celsus, 1, 34, 35 (IV, 410 ff.), where from his linguistic 
studies Origen decides that maby, which the Septuagint translates 
mapQévos, means technically a virgin, as is substantiated, in his opinion, 
by Deut. 22:23, 24. But by referring to Prov. 30: 19 and Cant. 6:8 
we are led to believe that his deduction was made upon too narrow a 
basis. Probably the best translation for Isa. 7:14 is “the young 
spouse.” 

The distinctive use of the New Testament is found in the relics 
which we have of Origen’s commentaries on Matthew and John. In 
the former, Books VI, 7, and X, 17 (IX, 357, 424), treating of the opinion 
of Jesus’ contemporaries as expressed in Matt. 13:55 ff., where Mary 
and the carpenter and his brothers are mentioned by name and his 
sisters referred to, he says: 

But some say, basing it on a tradition in the gospel according to Peter, as 
t is entitled, or the book of James, that the brethren of Jesus were sons of 
Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who 
say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that 
that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word which said: 
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, etc.,” might not know intercourse with 
man after that the Holy Ghost came into her, and the power from on high 
overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was 
the first fruit among men of the purity which consists in chastity, and Mary 
among women; for it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the 
first fruit of virginity."” 

mt FP. g., Against Celsus, I, 37 (IV, 412). 


12 ORIGENIS Com. Matt., X, 17: pact tives elvar éx mapaddcews dpucduevor rod 
éxyeypauuévou kara Ilérpov EvayyeNlov 7 ris BiBdov "laxwBou, viods "Iwahd éx mporépas 
yuvaixds, cuvpKnkvlas adT@ mpd Tis Maplas. Ol d¢ rafra Néyovrres 7d délwua THs Maplas 
év waplevia typetv wéxpe TéXovs BovhovTar, iva wh Td KpiOév Exetvo GHua Staxovicacbac 
T@ elrbvte Abyw. ILlvetua &yuv x. 7. d. yr@ Kxolrnv dvdpds wera 7d éredOeiv év duTz. 
IIveiua dyrov, kal rhy érecxiaxvia airy Stvamw é& tous. Kal oluac Abyor exer, dvipav 
Mev Kabaporntos Tis év ayveta drapxhy yeyovévar Tov Inoody, yuvacdv dé rhv Mapidu. 
Ov yap etpnuov, &\Xnv wap’ exelyny Thy drapxhy THs wapbevias émvrydwacGac. 


57 


58 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


In this passage Origen clearly accepts as agreeable with his own 
thinking the tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary given in the 
gospel of James, while he differs from those who by their questions 
recorded in Matt. 13: 55 evidently thought Jesus to be the son of Joseph. 
But just what does Origen mean by Jesus’ being the first fruit among 
men of the purity which consists in chastity,and Mary’s being the same 
among women? With regard to Jesus he seems to express it as a 
reasonable opinion that he was the first man born in purity, z. ¢., whose 
conception and birth were chaste. Impurity and unchastity entered 
into the generation of all others. In the case of Jesus this purity 
was the result of the miraculous conception by the spirit of God, and 
his miraculous birth as related in the gospel of James, for the birth 
there described is free from pollution such as attended every other 
birth, and the virginity of Mary is preserved intact. But does Origen 
assert a like birth for Mary herself? It is more probable that he 
intends to give Mary only a somewhat szmz/ar place of purity among 
women, not asserting a virgin birth for her, but, in accord with the 
gospel upon whose representation he has already commented, ascrib- 
ing to her superior chastity in her birth and upbringing. This is the 
impression given by the protevangelium, where the most remarkable 
child Mary is born to the aged Joachim and Anna, not of lust, but as 
the child of prayer, and is carefully shielded from all impurity. Simi- 
lar births of male children are recorded in the Old Testament, but 
Mary is the first woman of whom we have such a record. Thus the 
influence of the protevangelium of James or of some similar tradition 
is very evident in shaping the thought and expression of Origen in 
this passage. 

There is a reference to John 2: 21 in Com., X, 23 (IX, 403), where 
the query is raised as to whether “the temple of his body” means “the 
body which he received from the Virgin, or that body of Christ which 
the church is said to be.”” And the leaping of the Baptist in the womb 
of Elizabeth is taken to attest “his divine conception and birth.” 

Having dealt with the statements of the virgin birth and Origen’s 
appeal to Scripture, especially prophecy and the gospels, we come to 
the ultimate theological position of Origen on the question. WZDe 
Principits, I, 2, 4 (IV, 247): 

For those children of men which appear among us, or those descendants 
of other living beings, correspond to the seed of those by whom they were 
begotten, or derived from those mothers in whose wombs they are formed 
and nourished, whatever that is which they bring into this life and carry 

58 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 59 


with them when they are born. But it is monstrous and unlawful to com- 
pare God the Father, in the generation of his only begotten Son, and in the 
substance of the same, to any man or other living thing engaged in such an 
act; for we must of necessity hold that there is something exceptional and 
worthy of God which does not admit of any comparison at all, not merely in 
things, but which cannot even be conceived by thought or discovered by 
perception, so that a human mind should be able to apprehend how the 
unbegotten God is made the father of the only begotten Son. Because his 
generation is as eternal and everlasting as the brilliancy which is produced 
from the sun. For it is not by receiving the breath of life that he is made a 
son, not by any outward act, but by his own nature." 

Although Origen is not here dealing directly with the virgin birth 
as such, but rather with the problem of the creation of the pre-existent 
Son of God, still what he has to say has a double bearing upon the 
virgin birth; first, in that it flatly repudiates the thesis of Tertullian 
and others of the Fathers, that a god is born of a god, and that the 
laws which hold in the matter of human generation and offspring 
must be normative in the sphere of the divine. On the contrary, 
Origen, in a very laudable way, lifts the whole matter out of the realm 
of human parallel and says that, as when the sun first existed its rays 
went forth, so when God first existed (if such a time can be conceived) 
then inevitably the Son existed also. This idea has its bearing upon 
the virgin birth in freeing it from any thought of a nature imparted 
to Jesus, and in the second place makes the virgin birth an incarnation 
purely. 

The material of Origen is valuable for this study of the virgin birth 
in that it indicates what were the counter-stories in vogue among the 
Jews ; that the Greek myths and the story regarding the virgin birth of 
Plato were widely discarded, while the virgin birth of Jesus was still 

33 ORIGENIS De Principiis, I, ii, 4: “ Quoniam hi qui videntur apud nos hominum 
filii, vel caeterorum animalium, semini eorum a quibus seminati sunt respondent, vel 
earum quarum in utero formantur ac nutriuntur, habent ex his quicquid illud est quod 
in lucem hane assumunt ac deferunt processuri. Infandum autem est et illicitum, 
Deum patrem in generatione unigeniti filii sui atque in subsistentia ejus exaequare 
alicui vel hominum vel aliorum animantium generanti: sed necesse est aliquid excep- 
tum esse Deoque dignum cui nulla prorsus comparatio non in rebus solum, sed ne in 
cogitatione quidem, vel sensu invenire potest, ut humana cogitatio possit apprehendere 
quomodo ingenitus Deus pater efficitur unigeniti filii. Est namque ita aeterna ac 


sempiterna generatio sicut splendor generatur ex luce. Non enim per adoptionem 
spiritus filius fit extrinsecus, sed natura filius est.” 


4 For the Gnostic refinement of the incarnation see De Principiis, II, 6 (IV, 282), 
where the union of the pre-existent Son with yux7% prior to the latter’s assumption of 
a body lessens the difficulty of God’s mingling with matter. 


59 


60 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


generally maintained ; that the resort to prophecy was similar to that 
of former apologists, but with a show of more scholarship; that the 
mystic and spiritual import of the fact was, as would be natural from 
the Gnostic standpoint, of relatively the greatest importance ; and that 
this same spiritual sense freed the concept from some of its former 
grossness, and placed it beyond the realm of explanation; while at the 
same time the virgin birth was an important witness to the true nature 
of him who, being pre-existent as the Son of God, nevertheless sub- 
mitted to this wonderful incarnation. ‘‘ His birth from the Virgin and 
his life so admirably lived showed him to be more than a man” (Com. 
in Ioannem, I, 34, [IX, 315]). 

1. Inthe matter of the sources for the virgin-birth story Origen shows 
that there was no extra-canonical account to which the Jews in their bit- 
ter calumny could appeal, and that therefore they were forced to apply 
their inventive and spiteful genius to the canonical sources. All of the 
apocryphal sources were a heightening rather than a toning down or 
denial of the miraculous in the canonical accounts. That the heretics 
made use of these apocryphal elaborations is made quite probable from 
Against Celsus, 1, 28 (IV, 408). In this passage there seems to be a 
heretical use of some gospel or gospels that narrated the miraculous 
doings of Jesus while in Egypt. (See, e. g., Pseudo- Matthew, chaps. 19— 
24.) As for Origen himself, his chief appeal is to the canonical stories, 
but at the same time his references to the Gospel of the Hebrews and of 
Peter and of James, and his rather glad acceptance of the material 
which they afford, indicate the growing favor which the apocryphal 
gospels were receiving. 

2. Origen’s beliefin the pre-existence of Christ as the Word is 
clearly stated, as is also the humiliation of the advent as taught by Paul. 
He believed in the miraculous conception and in the virgin birth as a 
real birth, and yet he exalted the whole matter above the rightful field 
for man’s investigation and understanding, making it a more profound 
fact by far than the straight-going logic of Tertullian had assumed. 
Origen held to a combination, but hardly a harmonization, of the 
Johannine Logos philosophy and the simple account of the infancy 
sections of Matthew and Luke; and in this combination the Logos 
philosophy was the predominant factor. 

3. The item of chief importance contributed by Origen is his indi- 
cation of the growing acceptance of the apocryphal view of the chastity 
of Mary as emphasized in the teaching of her perpetual virginity. 
This gradual advance upon the position of Clement of Alexandria is 

60 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 61 


what would be expected in the case of so severe an ascetic as Origen, 
and we should therefore be guarded against crediting the apocryphal 
sources with too wide an influence among Christians who were unaf- 
fected by the Gnostic philosophy. 

X. Hipporytus (flourished 198—239)."° The extant writings of Hip- 
polytus state the theories of the virgin birth with great frequency and 
variety. Most of the views, however, are those that have already been 
noticed in other apologists and polemists.° Among the less familiar 
views is that of the Sethians: 

The Son ... . in the shape of a serpent entered into a womb in-order 
that he might be able to recover that Mind which is the scintillation from 
the light."77 
The Sethians had formed a threefold philosophy based upon light, 
spirit, and darkness, as the three fundamental elements. Light is that 
which is superior and above, darkness is its opposite, and spirit is 
between the two. Jesus came into human life to redeem the mind, 
which is light, encircled in the darkness of flesh. The Greek sophist 
Monoimus says: 

The Son of Man .... has been generated from the perfect man, whom 

no one knew; every creature who is ignorant of the Son, however, forms an 
idea of him as the offspring of a woman (Refutation of All Heresies, VIII, 
6[V, 122)). 
Noetus expresses the Patripassian theory which found favor with the 
contemporary Roman bishops and served to make them odious to 
Hippolytus. The longer statement of this theory is in IX, 5 (V, 127), 
but the shorter one in X, 23 (V, 148) gives the gist of the matter : 

And this heretic also alleges that the Father is unbegotten when he is 
not generated, but begotten when he is born of a virgin. 

There is an interesting belief recorded in IX, 9 and 25 (V, 132, 148), 
showing how the Pythagorean influence had determined the theory of 
a certain heretic Elchasai, who 


™5 EUSEBIUS, Church History, Book VI, 22. 

6 Orthodox statement = Refutation of All Heresies, VIII, 10; X, 29 (V, 123, 
152); Com. on Dan., III, 6 and 93 (V, 179, 188); Homilies, VI (V, 239); Against 
Noetus, 1V (V, 225); and Com. Prov. (V, 174). Especially emphasizing the reality 
of Jesus’ birth, Refutation of All Heresies, VI, 4 (V, 75); Valentinian and Gnostic 
views = Ref. All Her., VI, 30, 31; VIII, 2 (V, 88, 90, 118); Carpocrates = VII, 20 
(V, 113); Cerinthus = VII, 21; X, 17 (V, 114, 147); Ebionites = VII, 22 (V, 114); 
Theodotus = VII, 23; X, 19 (V, 114, 147); Apelles= VII, 26; X, 16 (V, 115, 147); 
Marcus = VI, 46 (V, 97); Docetic = VIII, 3 (V, 120). 

7 Refutation of All Heresies, V, 14; X, 7 (V, 66, 143). 

61 


62 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


asserts that Christ was born a man in the same way as common to all, and 
that Christ was not for the first time on earth when born of a virgin, but that 
both previously and that frequently again he had been born and would be 
born. Christ would thus appear and exist among us from time to time, 
undergoing alterations of birth, and having his soul transferred from body to 
body. 

Then finally there is the Jewish belief 

that his generation will be from the stock of David, but not from a virgin 
and the Holy Spirit, but from a woman and a man, according as it is a rule 
for all to be procreated from seed (Refutation of All Heresies, IX, 25 7, 
138]). 

From the material above cited and quoted we may learn with what 
variety and in connection with what professedly philosophic vagaries 
the doctrine of the virgin birth was set forth. Had more of the writ- 
ings of Hippolytus been preserved, we should undoubtedly be even 
more impressed with this fact, which means that the theological valua- 
tion of the doctrine steadily increased from what was in apostolic times 
a negligible quantity to what was now conceived to be of the most 
serious theological import. In the formulation of the church’s belief, 
whether that most commonly accepted or that peculiar to the heretical 
sects, this doctrine, in some form or other, negative or positive, was 
sure to appear. 

In examining the support which Hippolytus adduces from the 
Scriptures for the orthodox theory of the virgin birth we must, because 
of the fragmentary character of his writings, be satisfied with a more 
superficial defense than was offered by his great predecessors. No use 
is made of the Immanuel prophecy; but Daniel, Proverbs, and Psalms 
are the chief Old Testament authorities to which appeal is made. Prov. 
9:1, “‘Wisdom hath builded her house,” is taken to mean that Christ, 
the wisdom and power of God, took his covering of flesh from the 
Virgin. A fanciful comment is given on Cant. 4:16, “Awake, O 
northwind; and come thou, south. Blow upon my garden that the 
spices thereof may flow out”: 

As Joseph was delighted with these spices, he is designated the king's 
son by God; as the virgin Mary was anointed with them, she conceived the 
Word "7" (V, 176). 

In the comment on Dan. 3: 26 there is a statement of the pre-existence 


"178 HIPPOLYTUS, 7x Canticum Canticorum, 4:16: “His aromatibus cum oblecta- 
tus esset Joseph, filius Regis a Deo designatur. His Virgo Maria cum uncta esset, in 
ventre suo concepit Verbum.”’ 


62 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 63 


and activity of Christ before the virgin birth. There is also an obscure 
remark in the Commentary on the Psalms (V, 170): 

But the Lord was without sin, made of imperishable wood as regards his 
humanity; that is, of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost inwardly, and outwardly 
of the Word of God, like an ark overlaid with purest gold.™ 
The main object here seems to be to show the purity of Jesus’ concep- 
tion. But what can be meant by Jesus’ being made of the Virgin and 
the Holy Ghost zxward/y and of the Word of God outwardly? The 
reverse statement would have been more easy of apprehension. 
Whether there is any serious theological concept at the basis of this 
similitude of Jesus to the ark, or whether the similitude is carried out for 
its own sake and on this account, the Word, as being the more precious 
and corresponding to the gold of the ark, is given an external place 
in the ontography of Jesus, is difficult to say, because at most the pas- 
sage is only a fragmentary and fanciful comment on a Hebrew poem. 
If, however, the passage be taken at all seriously, it will be seen to 
teach that the Spirit and the Virgin produced the humanity of Jesus 
(7. ¢., the Spirit is the cause of the conception of Jesus the human 
being, but does not impart divinity to his nature), and the Word is 
the divine element existing in union with this humanity. But it 
should be borne in mind that the primary emphasis of the passage is 
upon the purity and sinlessness of Jesus." 

The theological deductions from the virgin birth are clear and uni- 
form. It took place in order that God might create anew the first- 
formed Adam: Dan., VII, §14 (V, 189); Refutation of All Heresies, X, 
29 (V, 152); Prov. 30:29 (V, 175). In orderto do this, the first-born 
God must be manifested in union with a first-born man: Com. Luke, 
2:7(V,194); Homilies, 1V, §2 (V, 234), and VII, §1 (V, 239); Com. 
Psalm., 109, 110 (V, 170), “that by uniting his own power with our 
mortal body, and by mixing the incorruptible with the corruptible and 
the strong with the weak, he might save perishing man.” *” Antichrist, 
4 (V, 205), and Against Noetus, 17 (V, 230). But the most compre- 

m8 Hrppo.tytus, Jz Psalmum XX/17; ‘O 5é Kipios dvaudprnros hv, éx TOv dojnrrwy 
EdNwy 7d Kara dvOpwrov, rodr’ cri éx THs IlapOévov kal Tod aylov Iveduaros Erwbeber, al 


EEwHev Tod Adyou Tov Geod, ola Kabapwrdtrw xpvolw mepixeKaduupévos. (These comments 
are gathered from quotations by THEODORET in his First and Second Dialogue.) 

19 See also comments on Pss. 109, 110 (V, 170), and Prov. 30: 29 ff., treating of the 
first and second Adam; and meager New Testament references (V, 213, 236). 

120 HippoLtytus, De Christo et Antichristo, V : “Owws ovyxepdoas 7d Ovnrdv udv 
cpa 7H éavrod duvduer, cal ulias TE aPOdpry 7d POaprdy kal Td dobeves TE loxupG, coon 
Tov dro\NUpevov &vOpwror. 

63 


64 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


hensive single statement is given in Fragment 8 of the Zreatise against 
Beron and Helix (V, 234): 


But the pious confession of the believer is that, with a view to our sal- 
vation and in order to connect the universe with unchangeableness, the Cre- 
ator of all things incorporated with himself a rational soul and a sensible 
body from the all-holy Mary, ever virgin by an undefiled conception, without 
change, and was made man in nature, but separate from wickedness ; the same 
was perfect God and the same was perfect man; the same was in nature at 
once perfect God and man.** 


In Hippolytus, then, we find the greatest variety of theories of the 
virgin birth, a superficial resort to scriptural attestation, and a clear 
conviction that such a birth was necessary for the restoration to God of 
fallen and corrupt man. Mary is “all-holy” as well as “ever virgin,” 
and her importance in the divine economy may be judged from the 
importance and greatness of the redemptive work undertaken by God 
through her sacred instrumentality. 

1. In addition to the canonical accounts Hippolytus used some 
such apocryphal sources as the gospel of James or the gospel of 
Thomas.** This is evidenced by his expressions of “ ever virgin” and 
“all-holy,” and in general by the exaltedness ascribed to Mary. 

2. In the passages which bear upon the virgin birth Hippolytus 
asserts the pre-existence of Jesus more than a dozen times. He goes 
even beyond the philosophy of John when he says that “ the Creator of 
all things incorporated with himself a rational soul and a sensible body 
from the all-holy Mary, ever virgin,” etc. Thus, as so often, the idea 
expressed in the prologue of John, because better calculated to support 
the divinity of Jesus, becomes the controlling factor in the representation 
of the advent of Christ. It will be seen that, while Hippolytus accepts 
Origen’s trichotomous description of Jesus, he holds that both soul and 
body were assumed from Mary, whereas Origen held the soul was sup- 
plied as a medium whereby to reduce the harshness of the incarnation 
of God, the divine spirit. 


mt HIPPOLYTUS, Contra Beronem et Heliconem, VIII: ’AXN evdoeBSs duodorye? 
mioretwy, bre did Thy Nudv owrnplay, cal 7d Sioa mpds arpeplay 7d wav, 6 TOv Sdwv 
Snusoupyds éx THs mavarylas devrapSévov Maplas, kara ovA\dAnYiw Axpavrov, diya Tporijs, 
évovciwoas eauT@ Wuxhv voepay pera alcOnrixod cdpatos, yéyovev AvOpwros Picea Kaklas 
addérpios, Sdos Geds 6 adrds, Kal Sros AvOpwios 6 abrbs. Sdos Oeds uot pice Kal AvOpwros 
6 aurés, 

2That Hippolytus used the gospel of Thomas see Phzlos., V,7: "Ev rg xara 
Owudv éervypapouevy edayyeNlw mwapadidbacr Aéyorres ol'rws, "Eve 6 Syrdv etpnoa év 
matdlors dard érdv érrd éxet yap év T@ ld’ alOve KpuBbuevos pavepoduac. 

64 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 65 


3. Hippolytus is of significance chiefly in showing how the 
apocryphal literature which, in its exaltation of Mary, served Clement 
as attractive illustration, and appealed to Origen as being in accord 
with reason, found unquestioned acceptance and unhesitating use. 

XI. Cyprian™ (bishop of Carthage, martyred 258) makes fre- 
quent quotation of prophecy and also of the gospel story, but all that 
he comments on or uses in any significant way is confined to three 
references. Two of these, Zpistles, 72, §5 (V, 380), and Treatises, 6, 
§ 11 (V, 468), contain merely the statement of the virgin birth involv- 
ing the pre-existence of Christ, as the Word and Son of God, who by 
the co-operation of the Holy Spirit entered a virgin and mingled with 
man in the birth, thus becoming a perfect mediator. The third refer- 
ence, Zreattses, Book II, 9(V, 515), contains an echo of the Immanuel 
argument: ‘That this should be the sign of his nativity that he should 
be born ofa virgin—man and God—son of man and of God.” 

1. The material of Cyprian is altogether too meager to warrant 
any broad deductions, but such material as we have reflects (1) a use of 
canonical sources only; (2) that he believed in the pre-existence and at 
the same time accepted the virgin birth, probably seeing in it, as did 
Tertullian his predecessor in Carthage, a consistent explanation of the 
humanity of the divine Christ. 

XII. Novatian, a Roman presbyter, in his work De Trinitate, 
chap. 24 (V, 635), written perhaps shortly after 256, makes a reference 
to the annunciation story in Luke, making especial use of the implica- 
tive force of 806 xal in 1:354. The heretics had not preserved the 
distinction between the “Son of God” and “Son of man” elements 
in Jesus. By the use of Luke 1:35 they had maintained that “man 
himself and that bodily flesh, that which is called holy, is itself the son 
of God.” In reply, Novatian points out that the Scripture does not 
say, “Therefore the holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be 
called the Son of God,’ but it says, “‘ Therefore a/so,” and thereby 
mplies that the Son of God is in the first place the Word of God 
which came into Mary by the Holy Spirit’s operation and which 
sanctified the substances taken from her body for the formation of 
Jesus, permitting them to be called “holy” and in a consequential 
and merely secondary sense the ‘‘ Son of God.” 

1. These passages from Novatian reveal his appeal to the infancy 
sections of Luke as ‘‘the divine Scriptures” and also verify the fact, 
before noted, that the heretics seem to have been shut up to the 

123 EUSEBIUS, Church History, Books III, VI, VII, XXXI. 

65 


66 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


canonical accounts as their only source of appeal in altering the gen- 
erally accepted teaching of the virgin birth. 

2. Novatian’s theory is decidedly that of an incarnation, the 
indwelling of the pre-existent Christ, the Word, within Mary, and his 
taking from her and hallowing those physical elements necessary to 
his human self-revelation. The doctrine as stated by Novatian gets a 
natural setting in trinitarian theory. God’s Son, the Word, is 
imparted to Mary by the Holy Spirit and from Mary is given to the 
world clothed in flesh, being still the Son of God, but, because of the 
human nature which he assumed, also Son of man. 

3. Perhaps Novatian’s chief contribution to the study is in his seri- 
ous and hitherto unsurpassed attempt to harmonize John and Luke, 
and almost equally in his clear definition of the incarnation in trini- 
tarian terms. 

XIII. Matcuion (flourished about 270) seems to present a new 
view of the incarnation in a fragment of the epistle of the Antiochian 
synod (VI, 171): 

He was formed in the first instance as man in the womb, and in the sec- 
ond instance (kara dedrepov dbyov) the God also was in the womb, united essen- 
tially with the human (cuvovowpévos TP dvOpwrlyw), that is to say, his substance 
being wedded with the man.*4 
This statement, however, does not exactly touch the matter of the 
virgin birth, but leaves the way open for a theory of the generation of 
the body of Jesus either naturally or by miracle, and subsequent to the 
beginning of that process an infusion of a divine element or the Word. 
Thus the incoming of the Word would not be the cause of the genera- 
tion, but, the generation being already under way by miraculous or 
natural initiative, the deifying element enters and differentiates Christ 
from all other men. But it would be very unsafe to more than admit 
the Zosszdility of such a theory from an isolated fragment such as this; 
and, at any rate, the theory would collapse should “ in the first instance” 
and ‘‘in the second instance” be shown to be logical rather than 
chronological, which is indeed probable. 

What Malchion seems to be contending for is the actual union of 
the divine and the human in Christ, as distinct from the mere indwell- 
ing of the divine as a spirit inhabiting the body. 

1. Nothing significant can be determined as to the sources used. 


4 MALCHION, £pistola contra Paulum Samosatam; ‘‘ Formatus est principaliter 
ut homo in ventre; et secundario Deus erat in ventre cuvovoiwuévos TE dvOpwrlvy, id 
est, copulata substantia ejus cum homine.”’ 


66 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 67 


2. Malchion seems to be contending for an actual incarnation and 
a vital union of the divine with the human. 

3. There is no significant increment to the study at this point. 

XIV. ARCHELAUs (flourished about 277). In the Disputation with 
Manes, which is no doubt for the most part genuine, the objections 
raised against the virgin birth by the Gnostic dualism of the Maniche- 
ans are clearly set forth, and are seen to be objections not so much 
against the virgin birth as against any birth whatsoever. Since matter 
is inherently evil, how could the Son of God submit to be born of a 
woman? §5 (VI, 182). Could the Son of God, he who could change 
himself into any semblance, and did change himself into the semblance 
of the sun, be under the necessity of having mother, brethren, or father, 
as is involved when Archelaus makes Joseph, his father, and Christ to 
descend upon him at the baptism? ‘To adopt this belief would be to 
make him the Son of God by increase (per profectum), and not because 
of his essential nature. Then, too, if he were a real material man, is 
it not also necessary to consider the dove that descended as material ; 
and how could it dwell withinhim? §50 (VI, 226, 227). Moreover, 
if Jesus were the son of Mary, it was possible for him to have brethren 
either begotten by the same Holy Spirit, and hence like himself, or 
perchance the undefiled Virgin had subsequent intercourse with Joseph 
—all of which is unthinkable. The rebuke administered by Christ to 
the intruder who announced the approach of his mother and brethren 
(Matt. 12:47), together with his approval of Peter’s confession (Matt. 
16:16), go to show that Jesus was born of no human parentage what- 
ever ; § 47 (VI, 223). 

In reply Archelaus points out the various uses of the term “ father,” 
showing that it may be used of the begetter or of the guardian of a 
child, or it may signify a certain privilege or revered standing because 
of age and position. In the first of these senses, God was the father 
of Jesus ; in the second, Joseph could be called his father ; and in the 
third, the title was applicable to David ;*° § 34 (VI, 207). Another 


125 ARCHELAUS, Cum Manete Haeresiarcha, §34: ‘‘Ignorare vos non arbitror, 
quoniam fafer unum quidem sit nomen, diversos tamen habet intellectus: alius enim 
pater dicitur eorum, quos naturaliter genuerit filiorum; alius vero eorum, quos 
tantummodo enutrierit; nonnulli vero temporis atque aetatis privilegio: unde et 
Dominus noster Jesus plurimos patres habere dicitur; nam et David pater ejus appel- 
latus est, et Joseph ejus pater putatus est, cum nullus horum pater ejus fuerit veritate 
naturae. Nam David pater ejus dicitur aetatis ac temporis privilegio, Joseph vero lege 
nutriendi; solus autem Deus Pater ejus natura est, qui omnia per Verbum suum 
velociter nobis manifestare dignatus est.” 


67 


68 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


argument is advanced from the fact that, the judgment being depend- 
ent upon the resurrection, and this upon the passion, and the passion 
in turn upon the birth from Mary, the whole Christian system would 
be undermined by the denial of such a birth ; § 49 (VI, 225). Archelaus 
appeals to Phil. 2:7 to show how Jesus voluntarily humbled himself 
and took the form of aservant. He asserts, moreover, that the descend- 
ing Spirit was only Ze a dove, and that Jesus’ body made of Mary 
was the only tabernacle that had ever been equal to sustaining the 
Spirit which descended from God ; §50 (VI, 226). 

There is also in the Dispufation a noteworthy story of the doings of 
an impostor Terebinthus,” the disciple of one of Scythianus. This 
Terebinthus made great claims for himself in Babylonia, alleging, 
among other things, “that he was the son of a certain virgin.” He 
was, however, cast down from a housetop by a spirit, and so perished. 
The incident indicates how this man of great pretensions simulated a 
birth like that ascribed to Jesus, but, unlike him, made such a birth a 
basis of appeal for establishing his own claims. 

1. The material of Archelaus betrays no use of extra-canonical sources, 
and the Manichzans seem to have made no pretense at having biblical 
sources for their teaching, but to have evolved their doctrine chiefly 
from an extreme Gnostic philosophy. Their abhorrence of the thought 
that Mary could ever have become actually married to Joseph reveals 
the influence of apocryphal gospels, or of such material as is embodied 
in them. 

2. Archelaus believed that Jesus was the Son of God (7. e., God) 
and that he chose to be made man of Mary, the mother of God, and 
that upon the man thus born the Spirit or the Christ descended at 
baptism, reconstituting the willingly humiliated one, Christ and divine. 

3. One contribution of Archelaus to the study is a clear definition 
of the uses of the term “ father.”” His reference to Mary the mother 
of God (if not the touch of a later Latin hand) is an inevitable result 
of the dominant rigid trinitarianism stimulated by the increasing 
tendency to exalt Mary. A third increment to the study is the idea of 
the complete humanizing of God in the incarnation, necessitating a 
restitution by the descent of the Spirit at baptism. In this way it 
seems that Archelaus is the first of the Fathers to make an actual har- 

6 ARCHELAUS, Cum Manete Haeresiarcha, §52: “Quo cum venisset, talem de 
se famam pervulgavit ipse Terebinthus, dicens omni se sapientia Aegyptiorum 
repletum, et vocari non jam Terebinthum, sed alium Buddam nomine, sibique hoc 


nomen impositum ; ex quadam autem virgine natum esse, simul et ab angelo in 
montibus enutritum.” 


68 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 69 


monization of John and Luke by representing the complete change of 
deity into humanity and the birth as that of a human being not 
possessed of a dual nature. 

XV. ARNoBIUs (flourished 290-310) says: 

We worship one who is born of man... . but if, while you know that 
they (the Greek gods) were born in the womb and that they lived on the 
produce of the earth, you nevertheless upbraid us with the worship of one 
born like ourselves, you act with great injustice..... You worship, says 
my opponent, one who was born a mere human being. Even if that were 
true, as has been already said in former passages, yet, in consideration of the 
many liberal gifts which he has bestowed on us, he ought to be called and 
be addressed as God (VI, 422)."”7 

This very fairly represents the practical sort of defense that could 
be produced from the limited information of Arnobius, and in view of 
the immediate issue which confronted him in the gross heathen idola- 
try from which he had so recently been converted. The statements 
that Jesus ‘‘was born a man,” “born a mere human being,” point (in 
view of the reference to Greek myth and the implication of “even if 
that were true,” § 37), not to the conclusion that Arnobius was ignorant 
of the virgin birth or, though informed on the theory, did not deem it 
worthy of mention or timely in the apology under consideration, but 
rather to the fact that his apology was of so primary a nature as to for- 
bid emphasis upon the distasteful elements of Christianity or upon 
anything but the barest fundamentals of faith. 

1. The material in our possession indicates an acquaintance with 
the virgin-birth story of Matthew or Luke, but not the slightest influ- 
ence of the Johannine philosophy, and an entire absence of apocry- 
phal elements. 

2. These two references do not indicate that Arnobius made any 
theological deductions from the virgin birth (assuming that he was 
acquainted with the accounts of Matthew and Luke), but that, on the 
contrary and for his immediate practical purpose, based the claim of 
divinity upon the benefits which Jesus bestowed upon mankind. 

3. He is of interest in the course of the study as representing a 
reversion to the virgin birth unaffected by the Logos doctrine. 


127 ARNOBIUS, Adversus Gentes, I, 37: ‘‘ Natum hominem colimus. ... . Sinautem 
scientes uteris esse gestatus, et frugibus eos victitasse terrenis, nihilominus tamen 
nati nobis hominis abjectatis cultum: res agitis satis injustas..... »4o's) FS Natim 


hominem colitis. Etiam si esset id verum, locis ut superioribus dictum est, tamen pro 
multis, et tam liberalibus donis, quae ac eo profecta in nobis sunt, Deus dici appellari- 
que deberet.” 


69 


70 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


XVI. Lacrantius (about 250-330) regards the virgin birth from 
a decidedly theological point of view. The Son of God, the Word, 
was first spiritually created by God; Justitutes, 1V, 8 (VII, 106). This 
was his first birth and in it no mother participated. His second birth 
was physical, of the Virgin’s womb, and in it no father participated. 
By these two births he was constituted a ‘‘ middle substance” between 
God and man, and was eminently fitted to be man’s Savior. He was 
“the Son of God through the Spirit and the son of man through the 
flesh, that is, both God and man ;” IV, 13 (VII, 112).*” 

1. The material of Lactantius reflects but slightly the influence 
of any sources save the canonical accounts™ of the virgin birth and 
the Johannine Logos doctrine, but it is possible that apocryphal influ- 
ence accounts for the epithet “holy” as applied to Mary. 

2. His understanding of the virgin birth is schematic ; and indeed 
he offers a partial rationale of John’s Logos doctrine in pointing out 
that, while other spiritual beings were merely the breath of God, he 
who was subsequently born of Mary was pre-eminent among the angels 
in that he was the articulate breath of God, z. e., the Word. But Lactan- 
tius does not differentiate the Word from “the Holy Spirit of God who 
descending from heaven chose the holy Virgin that he might enter 
into her womb.” The virgin birth assured the human nature of the 
divine Christ, and constituted him a fit mediator for the lost human race. 

3. The contribution of Lactantius to the history of the thought is 
of little interest except to show how the doctrine of the virgin birth 
as dominated by the Johannine philosophy was finding its place in the 
gradually hardening cast of a systematic theology. 

XVII. Meruopius (martyred about 311) has but one certain 
reference to the subject in hand: 


728 LACTANTIUS, Divin. Jnstit., 1V, 13: “In prima enim nativitate spiritali du%- 
Twp fuit, quia sine officio matris a solo Deo Patre generatus est. In secunda vero car- 
nali drdrwp fuit, quoniam sine patris officio virginali utero procreatus est, ut mediam 
inter Deum et hominem substantiam gerens, nostram hanc fragilem imbecillemque 
naturam quasi manu ad immortalitatem posset educere. Factus est et Dei filius per 
spiritum, et hominis per carnem; id est, et Deus, et homo.” See also chap. 25 and 
Epitome, 43 (VII, 126, 239). 

729 For use of a spurious quotation accredited to Solomon, but being probably a 
marginal interpolation of the Book of Wisdom, see /mstitutes, IV, 12, and Zpitome, 
44 (VII, 110, 239). 

39 His purported Ovation re Simeon and Anna, which contains material ger- 
mane to the virgin birth, is undoubtedly spurious and of much later date. The system 
of church festivals assumed in the work was not in existence at the time of Metho- 
dius; and the work gives evidence of being subsequent to the Nestorian controversy. 


70 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH a 


And thus, when renovating those things which were from the beginning 
and forming them again of the Virgin and the Spirit, he frames the same 
just as at the beginning. When the earth was still virgin and untilled, God, 
taking mold, formed the reasonable creature from it without seed..... 
(Chap. 5.) For when Adam, having been formed out of clay, was still soft and 
moist, and not yet like a tile made hard and incorruptible, sin ruined him, 
flowing and dropping down upon himlike water, and therefore God, moisten- 
ing him afresh, and forming anew the same clay to his honor, having first 
hardened and fixed it in the Virgin’s womb, and united and mixed it with the 
Word, brought it forth into life, no longer soft and broken.** (Discourse III, 
chaps. 4 and 5[VI, 318].) 

1. Methodius seems to be informed and influenced by the canonical 
sources only. 

2. His understanding of the virgin birth is that in it is an explana- 
tion of the dual nature upon the basis of a union of the Word with an 
impeccable human being, and also the assurance of the restoration of 
man to his primal purity. 

3. The material of Methodius serves to verify in some degree the 
existence of the theologizing tendency reflected in Lactantius ; and 
perhaps chiefly to recall again to our minds by avery striking example 
the dominant theological method of the entire ante-Nicene period. 

XVIII. Vicrorinus (martyred about 311), in commenting on Rev. 
1:16 (VII, 345 ff.), as illumined by Isa. 4:1, refers to Christ as ‘not 
born of seed ;” and in elaborating 4:7 (VII, 348) says: 

And in the figure of a man Matthew strives to declare to us the gene- 
alogy of Mary, from whom Christ took flesh. Therefore, in enumerating 
from Abraham to David and thence to Joseph, he spoke of him as if of a man. 
This conscious effort at representing God as human, which is 
ascribed to Matthew, is as far wide of the truth as the assertion that he 
gave the genealogy of Mary. A rather fanciful passage is found in 
the discourse on the Creation of the World (VII, 343), where he makes 
the day of the annunciation to Mary coincident with that on which Eve 
was deceived, and the day when “ the Holy Spirit overflowed the virgin 

131 METHODIUS, Comvivium Decem Virginum, 111, 4: Tatry yap dvafwypapav 
Ta é brapyjs, kal dvarddoowv adfis éx Iapbévov cal Iveduaros, rexralverac tov adréy, 
éreid}) Kal Kar’ dpxas, ovens Ilapbévov yijs ére kal dynpbrov, AaBav xodv, Td oyiKwTaroy 


ér\doato (Gov am’ avrijs 6 Geds dvev omopds. .. .. “Ere yap mndoupyovmevoy tov “Addu, 
@s tori elreiv, kal TyKTOv bvTa Kal Voaph, Kal pndérw POdoavra, Sikny dorpdxov, TH 


apbapcla kparawOjvar, tiwp dorep karadeBouévn kat Katacrdfovca, diéXvoev adrov 7 
auaptia, Ad dn rddw dvwbev dvadedwv kal rndoracTayv rdv avrév els Tyuhv 6 Oeds, év 
TD wapleky Kparewoas mpwrov kal mhias ujrpe, Kal cuverwoas kal cvyKepdoas TE Adyy, 
a&rnxrov kal &Opavotov ééiyyayev els Tov Blov, 


71 


72 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


Mary” coincident with that on which God made light. Other more 
important passages are found in a work Against All Heresies (III, 649- 
54), which is inserted in the text of Tertullian, but which in all proba- 
bility comes from the pen of Victorinus. The treatise is a hasty review 
of the chief heretics from Simon Magus to Praxeas, and deals specifi- 
cally with ‘‘ those who have chosen to make the gospel the starting-point 
of their heresies.” Among these are Saturninus (prior to Irenzus and 
probably to Justin), who stated that the innascible (¢mascibilem prob- 
ably an adaptation of cumoscibilem = ayvwotos) God abides in the 
highest regions, and that Christ did not exist in a bodily substance, 
but in phantasmal form; and Basilides (about 120), asserting that 
Christ came to this world in a phantasm and was destitute of the 
substance of flesh ; and the Ophites (second century prior to Irenzeus) 
or Serpentarians, also asserting that Christ did not exist in the sub- 
stance of flesh ; and Carpocrates (about 130), denying that Christ 
was born of a virgin and maintaining that he was a mere human 
being born of the seed of Joseph, but superior to all men in the prac- 
tice of righteousness and in integrity of life, hence only his soul was 
received into heaven, and there is no resurrection of the body. Cerin- 
thus (about 100) also maintained that Christ was born of the seed 
of Joseph, while Valentinus (about 140) asserted that Christ was sent 
by the First-Father, Bythus, was not of the substance of our flesh, 
but, bringing down from heaven some sort of spiritual body, took noth- 
ing from Mary, but only passed through her as water through a pipe. 
Ptolemy (about 170), and Secundus (about 170), and Heracleon (about 
170) held the same view as that of Valentinus. Marcus (about 150) 
and Colarbasus (second century prior to Irenzeus) also asserted that 
Christ was not in the substance of flesh, but descended upon the 
natural Jesus— and there is no bodily resurrection. 

Then the author mentions Cerdo (about 135), who believed in two 
gods, a superior and an inferior one, and that the Son of the superior 
God was not flesh, was not born of a virgin, was not born at all, but 
was a mere phantasm. Cerdo denied any bodily resurrection, and 
received only the gospel of Luke, and that in part. His disciple 
Marcion of Pontus agreed with him, as did Lucan, Marcion’s disciple. 
Apelles, another disciple of Marcion, specified more particularly as to 
the body of Christ, saying that it was composed of a starry ethereal sort 
of flesh, which Christ gathered in his descent from the upper world, 
and the elements of which he restored to space after his resurrection 
and during his ascension. As for Tatian (about 140), ‘ he wholly 


72 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 73 


savors of Valentinus.” The followers of A‘schines affirm Christ to be 
himself Son and Father. Theodotus, the Byzantine (prior to Hippo- 
lytus), admitted that Christ was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, 
but held that he had no pre-eminence over other men except in 
righteousness ; while a second Theodotus held a somewhat similar 
doctrine, asserting that Christ was inferior to Melchizedek, inasmuch 
as the latter was a mediator between God and azge/s, and surpassed 
Christ likewise in being, not only dérdrwp, but also dyjrwp and dayevea- 
Aoyntds. The heresy of Praxeas (about 200?) consisted in his belief that 
Christ was God the Father Almighty. 

Of the above-stated beliefs that of Theodotus of Byzantium is per- 
haps the most striking, in that, while it admits the virgin birth, it denies 
the deductions commonly made therefrom, attributing to Christ only 
pre-eminent righteousness, and that not necessarily because of his 
unique birth. Theodotus had as a persona] and determinative reason 
for holding this striking theory the fact that under persecution he had 
denied Christ, and it was a palliative to his conscience to maintain that 
after all he had not denied God, but man only.*” 

1. From the first three references of Victorinus it is clear that his 
own thought is controlled chiefly by the canonical infancy sections, 
while at the same time there is probably a hint of the influence of the 
fourth gospel in the expression that Christ took flesh from Mary. 
The other references, although not beyond a doubt those of Victorinus, 
give some idea of the widespread influence of Gnosticism in its various 
phases, and indicate that Gnosticism had no authoritative evangelical 
sources of its own to set over against the canonical gospels, but rather, 
so far as scriptural sanction was needed, fell back upon the canonical 
sources, resorting to whatever change or curtailment was found 
necessary. 

2. Victorinus’s understanding of the virgin birthis not clearly stated, 
but it is a practically safe deduction to credit him with the orthodox 
doctrine of an incarnation of God, the Word or Spirit. 

3. The contribution given by Victorinus consists chiefly in the 
exhaustive survey of the heresies touching the virgin birth and in a 
clear verification of the fact that the heretics were always destitute of 
any authoritative starting-point save the canonical Scriptures. 

XIX. PETER (bishop of Alexandria, martyred about 311) says: 

Now God the Word in the absence of a man, by the will of God, who 
easily effects everything, was made flesh in the womb of the virgin, not 

%32See context and SCHAFF, History of Christian Church, Vol. Il, p. 574. 

73 


74 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


requiring the operation of the presence of aman. For more efficacious than 
a man was the power of God overshadowing the Virgin, together with the 
Holy Ghost, who came upon her.’3 (Fragment on The Godhead [ V1, 280, 283].) 
The extravagant nature of two remaining references makes some- 
what against their genuineness. Such expressions as “ the most blessed 
mother of God and ever-virgin Mary’ (Genuine [Acts VI, 267]) 
and “ Our Lord and God Jesus Christ being in the end of the age born 
according to the flesh of our holy and glorious lady, mother of God 
and ever virgin, and of a truth of Mary the mother of God’”**® (Frag- 
ment 5 [ VI, 282]) sound somewhat anachronistic, and of a piece with 
post-Nicene Mariolatry. But, after all, they are only a summary of the 
extravagant titles already applied to Mary, with the addition of “ glori- 
ous lady.” 

1. Peter has as sources (Matthew), Luke, and John, but at the same 
time he shows the most marked influence of the apocryphal literature. 

2. According to Peter, God the pre-existent Word was made flesh 
in the womb of Mary by the power of God overshadowing her and the 
Holy Spirit coming upon her. Probably the thought of Peter resem- 
bles that of Novatian in regarding the Spirit (or power) as imparting 
to Mary the Word, who thus became incarnate. As usual, the virgin 
birth is described in terms of an incarnation. 

3. The very pronounced influence of the apocryphal literature is 
perhaps the chief increment which Peter of Alexandria makes to the 
study. 

XX. ALEXANDER OF ALEXANDRIA (died about 326) states how 
that God, the Son, whose creation was beyond the power of the human 
mind to grasp, and who reigned with the Father in heaven, descended 
to earth and became incarnate in the Virgin’s womb, assuming from 
her, who was thus constituted the mother of God, an actual body.’ 

1. Alexander shows the influence of the sources which have by this 


133 PETER OF ALEXANDRIA, Jn Deitate: ‘O 5é Oeds Adyos mapa Tiv dvdpds drov- 
clav, Kara BoUAnow Tod mavra Suvayévou Karepydcacba Oeod, yéyovev év untpa THs TLapbévov 
odpt, unre Senbels rhs dvbpds évepyelas } wapovolas. *Evepyéorepov yap Tod dvdpds éveroln- 
cev 4 TOU Oeod Sivayus, eruskidcaca TH Llapbévy ody T@ éwedndvObre ayly Ivevdpare. 

134 PETER OF ALEXANDRIA, Acta Sincera; “ Venerunt in ecclesiam beatissimae Dei 
Genetricis semperque virginis Mariae.” 

138 PETER OF ALEXANDRIA, Fragments, V,§7: 6 Kipws judy, cal eds Inoois 6 
Xpurrds, ert cuvredela trav alwvlwy card odpka TexOels ex ris aylas évddtou Seomolvns 
hpGv Ocorbxov cal’ Aevrapbévov, Kal kara dd7jOeav Oeordxov Maplas, 

#36An addition in the codex, VI (VI, 302), gives also the reason for the virgin 
birth: “To raise erect lost man, re-collecting his scattered members.” 


74 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 15 


time become common to all the writers contributing to the study, viz., 
the canonical infancy stories, the Logos teaching of the fourth gos- 
pel, and the apocryphal literature. 

2. As is clearly the case subsequent to the time of Ignatius, and 
with the exception of Arnobius, Alexander’s thought of the virgin 
birth is controlled by the Logos doctrine, becoming on that account an 
incarnation in a sense that would never be suggested by the infancy 
sections alone. 

3. Alexander’s contribution, standing, as he does, the last of these 
twenty ante-Nicene Fathers to contribute to the study, is that of an 
inheritor of the good and evil of his predecessors, in apology, in polemic, 
and in constructive theology. His representation is a product of the 
whole period, during which the child born in Bethlehem gained his 
title to messiahship and divinity and pre-existence, carrying up with him 
from her obscurity the humble mother who from “virgin” became 
“ever virgin,” and from “ever virgin” “all-holy,” and from “ all-holy” 
to what was inevitable in the trinitarian thought —‘“‘ mother of God.” 

XXI1. Conclusion.—In making a recapitulation of this survey of the 
Ante-Nicene Fathers, we shall endeavor (1) to gather up the facts 
which throw light upon the sources used by the defenders and the 
opponents of the virgin birth; (2) to exhibit what theories the suc- 
cessive Fathers held as to the origin of him who was born of the 
virgin; (3) to point out the theological and apologetic use made of 
the doctrine; and (4) to indicate the bearing of the facts adduced 
upon the relation existing between the doctrine of Scripture and that 
which became the doctrine of the church, and to show the consequent 
need of a historical and untraditional interpretation of the canonical 
accounts of the virgin birth. 

1. From the first post-apostolic reference to the virgin birth to 
the close of the ante-Nicene period, the modifying influence of the 
doctrine of the pre-existence is clearly traceable. Nowhere does the 
representation of Matthew and Luke get a distinctly separate and 
independent treatment or interpretation. It is true that the influence 
of the Johannine source is not as unmistakably present in Ignatius as 
in all the other Fathers (Arnobius excepted), but it is nevertheless 
present in sufficient power to give an interpretation which cannot 
upon any other basis be thought to spring from the Matthean and 
Lucan material. If it is objected that Arnobius stands as an excep- 
tion to this general statement, in that his interpretation of the virgin 
birth is uninfluenced by the Johannine material, the objection loses its 

75 


76 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


farce from the fact that Arnobius gives absolutely no interpretation of 
the virgin birth, but only a few words of elementary apologetic. In 
one or two passages Justin Martyr (Afo/., I, 21) and possibly Tertullian 
(Answer to Jews, 13, and Against Marcion, IV, 10) betray the sur- 
vival of the representation in the infancy sections; yet they show 
almost uniformly the influence of the doctrine of the pre-existence; 
while none of the other Fathers reflect the thought of the mere birth 
of a being generated in the womb of Mary; so that the Johannine 
source is dominant from the beginning of the second century to the 
Council of Nicza.*” 

As early as Justin there is evidence of extra-canonical tradition 
concerning the infancy, but this tradition in no wise influences his 
argument. ‘Tertullian plainly mentions the existence of other gospels 
of the nativity, but does not accept any such teaching as that of the 
perpetual virginity of Mary, thus showing that the teaching of such a 
gospel as that of James (the existence of which explains the reference 
of Justin, and also those of subsequent Fathers) did not commend 
itself to the defenders of the humanity of Christ. But the apocryphal 
material was more attractive to Clement of Alexandria, who used the 
teaching mentioned above for purposes of illustration merely, while 
his successor Origen went so far as to commend the reasonableness of 
it, and Hippolytus accepted it outright. Thus a third source entered 
to influence the church’s interpretation of the virgin birth; and this 
source (in all probability the gospel of James) remained as a potent 
factor at the close of the period. The remarkable fact concerning the 
almost numberless heretical attempts to discredit the virgin birth— 
on the one hand, by a thorough naturalizing of it, and, on the other, 
by a thorough Docetic treatment—is that the heretics of either sort 
are shut up to a use of the canonical sources as the authoritative point 
of departure and the only recognized basis of appeal. There is some 
evidence*® that the Jewish heretics were influenced by the infancy 
stories of Pseudo-Matthew, and that the Manichzans were influenced 
by the gospel of James, but, on the whole, the defenders of the 
Catholic faith were more subject to the infusion of apocryphal thought 
than were the heretics; while both fell back upon the canonical writ- 
ings alone as the standard of authority. 


137 The Nicene Creed reads: ‘“* We believe . . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ .... 
who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and was made 


” 
. 


man 
1388 ORIGEN, Against Celsus, 1, 28 (1V, 408). 
76 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH vi | 


2. What has been said about the sources has, of course, its direct 
bearing upon the theories that were entertained as to the origin of 
him who was born of Mary; and, with one barely possible exception 
(that of Arnobius), the theories are uniformly dominated by the doc- 
trine of the pre-existence. Justin and Tertullian may break away 
from the incarnation theory for a moment,” but never in such a way 
as to renounce it, even though its retention necessitates an inconsist- 
ency in their thinking. Predominantly, their theory is that of the 
incarnation of the Word, the Son, or the Spirit of God. With 
Tertullian and some of the subsequent Fathers, such as Novatian and 
Peter of Alexandria, there is an attempt to harmonize the theories of 
the pre-existence and the virgin birth by representing the Spirit or 
power of God as bearing to Mary at the time of her conception the 
Word who dwelt within her and from her assumed flesh; while 
Archelaus goes still farther in his harmonization by making the pre- 
existent Son of God become utterly devoid of his divinity in the 
virgin birth, and to be, apart from the miraculous conception, born as 
other men, being consequently thoroughly human prior to the 
descent of the Spirit upon him at baptism. 

But even in the most elaborate attempt at harmonizing the two 
ideas, that of the prologue of John was still the dominant theory, and 
in the record of the post-apostolic thought placed the virgin birth in 
a light which it could not possibly have assumed to any reader unac- 
quainted with the Johannine philosophy. There were then two 
theories present, but the one (that of the begetting of a new being by 
the miraculous exercise of divine power upon Mary causing her to 
conceive apart from intercourse with man) always subservient to the 
other (that of the incarnation of the inconceivably begotten and eter- 
nally pre-existent Word, Spirit, or Son of God). 

3. Whenever the virgin birth frees itself for a moment from the 
doctrine of a pre-existence and an incarnation, it invariably appears 
as explaining the dual nature of Jesus. This is truein Ignatius and 
Irenzus, where the divine nature is thus explained, and in Tertullian 
especially, and Cyprian, Lactantius, Methodius, and Victorinus (prob- 
ably), where the humanity of the divine Christ is made dependent upon 
the virgin birth. The doctrine of the virgin birth was from the first 
only one factor in the evolving theology, and it was natural at the 
beginning, in so far as it could at all be kept distinct, that it should 
lend its influence to a substantiation of the divinity of Jesus; and this 

139 JUSTIN MARTYR, Afol., I, 21; TERTULLIAN, Answer to Jews, 13. 

77 


78 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


it did. But another and more potent factor was very early present to 
accomplish the same result, and so effectual was the Logos doctrine in 
securing this end that as early as the time of Tertullian it became 
necessary to use the virgin birth for the distinctly opposite purpose — 
that of insuring the real humanity of Jesus. 

Several forces were militating against all that was natural and 
human in Christ. The profound conviction of his deity, the high 
estimate of asceticism, and the prevalence of various forms of Gnostic 
belief, which ever widened the impassable gulf between God and man, 
were not only relegating Jesus into a sphere beyond the reach of the 
church, but at the same time constituting the demand for perfect 
purity on the part of his mother, and such purity as in the minds of 
the orthodox themselves could be met only by perpetual virginity. 
Thus it is probable that the apocryphal inventions which reflected back 
upon Mary the purity and exaltedness of the Savior were only devout, 
though superficial, attempts to meet the need which a dominant trini- 
tarianism and a profound belief in the sinfulness of human generation 
had awakened in the consciousness of the church. 

It has been pointed out that the church began, not with one, but 
with two, opinions concerning the beginning of the earthly life of Jesus, 
and these two opinions such as were not easy of harmonization. 
Hence the confusion, and sometimes absurdity, into which those inevi- 
tably fell who endeavored to be faithful to the irreconcilable and early 
accepted interpretations of the two accounts, and the heresy which 
became the portion of those who, taking one or the other conception, 
pushed to the extreme limit the tendency therein represented. On the 
one hand were the Gnostics and the Docetics, true to the philosophic 
spirit out of which the Logos doctrine took its rise, but ignoring the 
all-important link which John welded in vs. 14 of his prologue, and 
consequently holding to an advent that was unaffected by humanity, 
or, in the more extreme and Docetic type of thought, was nothing 
more than a semblance or an apparition. On the other hand were 
Carpocrates, Cerinthus, the Ebionites, and others, who, taking the 
infancy sections, gladly accepted all that would contribute to the real 
humanity of Jesus, but denied the miraculous conception because used 
by others to prove the divinity of his nature. Between these limits 
were the great company of the orthodox who accepted literally the 
infancy sections and the prologue of John; and almost uniformly 
adhered to the virgin birth as the explanation of the dual nature of 
Jesus, first (and most nearly in accord with pagan thought) as an 

78 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 79 


explanation of his divinity, and afterward (for safeguarding the reality 
of his body) as an explanation of his humanity. As has already been 
implied, the chzef theological use to which the ante-Nicene Fathers put 
the doctrine of the virgin birth, was that of substantiating the doctrine 
of the dual nature of Jesus; and such a use is an explanation of the 
relatively great importance attaching to the theory of the virgin birth 
throughout that early period. The fact of this cardinal use of the 
virgin birth cannot be overemphasized, and should be amplified by a 
further definition of the important corollaries which the Fathers 
deemed deducible from such an understanding and use of the doc- 
trine. 

In the first place, the virgin birth, being the currently accepted 
proof of the dual nature of Jesus, was used to prove consequently his 
complete fitness as a mediator between God and man. His ability to 
mediate was based neither upon his knowledge nor his character as 
such, but upon his dual nature as secured by a virgin birth. In the 
second place, the virgin birth served as an explanation of the sinlessness 
of the human nature of Jesus. All human beings from Adam down 
had been conceived and brought forth in sin. Not only did the taint 
of inherited sin rest upon them, but human procreation was in itself 
evil. By the virgin birth, however, Jesus was wholly freed from the 
latter, for he was not ‘“‘ stained by human generation ;’’ while as to the 
former, the sin that might be inherited through Mary, that the early 
church blinked at until the devout and well-meaning apocryphal writers 
invented for her birth and upbringing such stories as would most 
effectually minimize the possibility of lust or impurity (as they con- 
ceived them) in the inception and entire course of her life. These 
stories the Fathers came to receive, and, with a miraculous conception 
and a birth that did not impair the virginity of Mary (who was chastely 
born of very aged and devout parents, and during her whole™® life 
free from all knowledge of men), the purity of the human nature of 
Jesus was for all practical purposes, and in what seemed to them a 
practical way, thoroughly assured. In the third place, the fact that the 
virgin birth constituted him a perfect mediator and insured the sinless 
perfection of his human nature, made him the only savior of lost 
humanity. He was the new Adam, the first of a new race, and this 
antithesis is the constant and pertinent refrain throughout the entire 
patristic literature. 

4. In concluding the study of the ante-Nicene Fathers, and in 

4° TERTULLIAN, Monogamy, 8 (IV, 65), contra. 

79 


80 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


pointing out the significance of the investigation offered in the fore- 
going pages, it is desirable to emphasize the distinction, referred to at 
the outset, viz., the distinction between the historical criticism of the 
Scripture narratives of the virgin birth and the use made of these nar- 
ratives by the ante-Nicene Fathers. It is with the latter investigation 
only that this essay has to do, and for the present purpose questions as 
to the historicity or invention of the infancy sections are waived, for it 
is Our present concern to interpret and to trace the history of the 
interpretation of these accounts, which, whatever their origin, very 
early came to be important sources for Christian theology. Whether 
the church feels bound to abide by the interpretation which the Fathers 
placed upon the virgin birth will, in the long run, depend upon its confi- 
dence in their ability and method as interpreters. From them alone has 
the church received its interpretation of the virgin birth. Nowhere out- 
side of the infancy sections do the Scriptures contain any reference to 
it, either predictive or argumentative. If the method and culture out 
of which the accepted interpretation sprang have not been improved 
upon, if the allegorical method still suffices and a scientific culture 
which believed that certain animals, such as the vulture,“’ conceived 
without intercourse, or that others conceived by the wind, and that 
the Son of God could enter the womb in the form of a serpent “’—if 
these suffice for a time when there is at least some knowledge of the 
inevitable sequences of nature and of the value of historical interpre- 
tation, then the understanding and doctrinal import which the Fathers 
attached to the virgin birth need no-revision. 

But if, on the other hand, the Fathers were by the very nature of 
things incapable of interpreting correctly either the infancy sections 
themselves or the philosophic preface of the fourth gospel, it follows, 
not only as the privilege, but as the duty, of the interpreter to view 
independently and with the most and best light available those por- 
tions of the New Testament which by tradition alone have been made 
to carry what they did not originally contain. It is of some value to 
the theologian to know the history of the beliefs which are put into his 
hands for arrangement and ultimate verification. If this history of the 
interpretation of the virgin birth has succeeded in revealing the source 


41 ORIGEN, Against Celsus, 1, 37 (IV, 412). 
4 LACTANTIUS, Divine Institutes, lV, 12 (VII, 110). 


“3 HIPPOLYTUS, Refutation of All Heresies, X, 7 (V, 143). This conception, not 
of the orthodox, but of the Sethians, is nevertheless of value in indicating the scien- 
tific culture of the time. 


80 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 81 


and character of that interpretation, it may well leave its results, though 
meager, in the hands of the theologian to whose task this effort is but 
tributary. 


Ill THE NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA. 


The New Testament apocrypha in their treatment of the virgin 
birth differentiate themselves very clearly from the canonical and the 
patristic writings. The canonical accounts are chaste, brief, and 
unphilosophical ; the patristic productions are more theological and 
inferential because of apologetic and polemic necessity; but the 
apocryphal writings are gross and prolix in the invention of details and 
the fabrication of a more exhaustive story. Just how impoverished 
and palpable these inventions are will best appear from an examination 
of those false gospels which in their original form at least belong to 
the period under consideration. Such an examination of the Gospel 
of James will suffice to give a correct idea of the more important 
apocryphal gospels in their relation to the virgin birth, for the Pseudo- 
Matthew and the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary are but recasts of the 
tradition earlier embodied in the Gospel of James, while the Arabic 
Gospel of the Infancy comes from the same source, augmented perhaps 
by some elements from the Gospel of Thomas. 

The Gosfel of James.— To ascertain exact dates for the New Testament 
apocrypha is next to impossible. Comparative and relative dates must suf- 
fice. We have proof of the presence of some such story as the Gospel of 
James in Justin’s Déa/., 78, and, while this would not be conclusive for the 
existence and influence of the whole gospel in its present form, it would suffice 
to show that some of the elements of such a gospel existed prior to 166. 
Tischendorf places the original of the Gospel of James in the first half of the 
second century. The gospel as we have it has in all probability been worked 
over, but that the story in its present form is essentially the Jewish Christian 
work attributed to James and extant in the time of Justin is more than prob- 
able. An expression in Justin’s Dia/., 101, is thought to be a quotation of the 
original of the Gospel of James: xat xapav \aBotca Mapla 7) rapbévos. Protevang.: 
xapav dé NaBotca Mapla. 

But these gospels seem to have been for a long time ina more or less 
nebulous state, seldom condensing into a rigid form, often reappearing in 
modified, abbreviated, or lengthened forms, but never securing sufficient recog- 
nition or esteem by the church to make Christians jealous of their exactness 
or preservation. So that the Gospel of James as we have it probably dates 
not prior to the latter part of the third century. Harnack™ thinks that it is 


™4HARNACK, Gesch. altchrist. Litt, II, 1, p. 725. “Das Protevangelium des 
Jacobus hat erst nach Origenes und vor der Mitte des 4. Jahrh. seine jetzige Gestalt 


81 


82 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


a compilation of three stories and that it assumed its present form after 
the time of Origen and before the middle of the fourth century; but that the 
part treating of the birth of Jesus belongs perhaps to the second century, and 
the childhood history of Mary shortly before the time of Origen. 

The substance of the gospel is as follows: Joachim, a rich Jew, possessed 
of a generosity similar to that of Tobit, wished to offer a double portion in the 
temple, but was rebuked because he was the father of no children. Having 
retired to the desert, he fasted and prayed for forty days, while his wife Anna 
mourned over her supposed widowhood and bitter childlessness. But as she 
sat in a garden lamenting, an angel came to her and announced “* that she 
should conceive, About the same time an angel announced to Joachim the 
same fact, and two other angels came to tell Anna that Joachim was return- 
ing. In due time Anna brought forth a girl, and said, ‘‘‘ My soul has been 
magnified this day.’ And she laid her down. And the days having been 
fulfilled Anna was purified and gave the breast to the child and called her 
name Mary.” 

When Mary was six months old she walked seven steps. Her mother 
made a little sanctuary for her in her own bedchamber and “allowed nothing 
common or unclean to pass through her.” When she was a year old her 
father made a feast and invited ‘the priests and the scribes and the elders 
and all the people of Israel.” The priests blessed the child. At the age of 
three her parents took her tothe temple to be brought up, ‘‘ and the priest 
received her and kissed her and blessed her, saying ‘ The Lord has magnified 
thy name in all generations. In thee, on the last of the days, the Lord will 
manifest his redemption to the sons of Israel.’’”” ‘And Mary was in the 
temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there, and she received 
food from the hand of an angel.’”’ When she was twelve years old an angel 
directed Zacharias to assemble the widowers of the people, and to whomso- 
ever the Lord should show a sign, his wife should Mary be. The lot fell to 
the aged Joseph, out of whose rod there came a dove. And the priest said 
to Joseph, ‘‘ Thou hast been chosen by lot to take into thy keeping the virgin 
of the Lord.” Joseph went away to build a house for his new charge, and 


erhalten ; der Abschnitt iiber die Geburt Jesu (Joseph-Apocryphum) gehdrt vielleicht 
dem 2. Jahrh., der Abschnitt iiber die Jugendgeschichte der Maria (der Hauptab- 
schnitt des Buches) kann erst kurz vor Origenes entstanden sein; der Zacharias- 
abschnitt hat seine jetzige Form wohl erst nach des Zeit der Origenes erhalten.” 


™45(1) The history of the conception, birth, and life of Mary up tothe period cov- 
ered by the canonical stories; (2) the story of the birth of Jesus narrated by Joseph 
and therefore in an apocryphum of Joseph; and (3) an apocryphum of Zacharias. 


4©Tn the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary nearly all of the subsequent history of 
the child to be born is made known to the mother in the annunciation, and the sinless- 
ness of Mary’s manner of conception is strongly emphasized. Chap. 3 of the Gospel 
of the Nativity throws considerable light upon the objective and subjective sources 
out of which these apocryphal traditions took their rise. 


82 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 83 


when he returned found that Mary was six months withchild. He was greatly 
distressed, fearing that his guardianship had been criminally lax. Mary 
asserted her innocence, and in Joseph’s perplexity as to what he should do an 
angel appeared to him with substantially the same message as that recorded 
in Matthew. The priests discovered Mary’s condition, and both Joseph and 
Mary were brought up for trial and acquitted by their own protestations of 
innocence and the test of Numb. 5:11 ff. ‘‘ And there was an order from the 
emperor Augustus that all in Bethlehem of Judea should be enrolled.” 
Before reaching Bethlehem Mary’s time was fulfilled. Attended by Joseph’s 
sons she entered a cave ; Joseph went in search of a midwife and fell into a 
sort of trance in which he saw all the creatures of the earth awestricken. A 
midwife coming down from the hill-country met him, and after Mary had 
given birth to her son testified to Salome that Mary was a virgin.“7 Salome, 
disbelieving, examined Mary and found it to be so, whereupon her hand was 
stricken with a deadly disease, but by the instruction of an angel she placed 
her hand upon the child, who immediately healed it. Then follows the story 
of the magi, the rage of Herod, Mary’s concealment of Jesus in an ox-stall, 
the earth’s opening to protect Elizabeth and John, Zacharias’s refusal to tell 
where John was hidden and his consequent murder. ‘And I James wrote 
this history in Jerusalem, a commotion having arisen when Herod died, with- 
drew myself to the wilderness until the commotion in Jerusalem ceased, 
glorifying the Lord God who had given me the gift and the wisdom to write 
this history. And grace shall be with them that fear our Lord Jesus Christ, 
to whom be glory to ages of ages. Amen.” 

The primary purpose of this religious novel is to assign to Mary such a 
manner of birth and upbringing as befits the virgin mother of the Lord, and 
secondarily to further substantiate, by citing the details of an alleged exami- 
nation, the fact of Mary’s virginity, not only before, but after the birth of 
Christ. The strenuous emphasis upon the divinity of Jesus had, as we have 
seen, inevitably exalted the standing of his mother, and, as the historical 
theologians have pointed out, this overemphasis became almost equivalent 
to robbing the church of a Christ capable of sympathy with the merely 
human. Hence the turning to Mary. But by what method could the exalted 
position of Mary be supported? ‘The fact was that the church saw her, as it 
were, in midair, half-way between the Christ deified beyond men’s grasp and 
the church on earth largely destitute of a sense of the approachableness of 
God. Some visible superstructure must be erected to support Mary in her 
serviceable but precarious position— something forsooth to keep her from 
falling to the level of the sin-conscious world, and something perhaps to 
keep her from vanishing into heaven whither the thoroughly deified Christ 
had withdrawn. 

™47 Pseudo-Matthew (chap. 13) goes even farther, claiming that Mary underwent 
none of the experiences of parturition but became a mother in a painless and mysteri- 
ous way. 


83 


84 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES 


The material and the details for such an undertaking were not far to seek. 
Greatness, even that of Jesus, depended upon lineage; and most of the 
notables of heathen myth and Old Testament story were designated as such 
by extraordinary features attending their births. Not only in extra-canonical 
myth, but in the Jewish Scriptures, giants and heroes were thought to be the 
offspring of gods and women, Gen. 6: 2-5. Isaac was the son of a barren 
woman of ninety years by a father a hundred years old. Jacob was the son 
of a barren mother, and his strange action at the time of his birth was, so 
Yahweh said, prophetic of his assured greatness. The mother of Joseph was 
barren until that great patriarch was given in answer to prayer. The babe 
Moses had a wonderful deliverance. The birth of the mighty Samson was 
announced to the barren wife of Manoah by an angel. Samuel was given to 
the barren Hannah in answer to prayer and to take away her shame from the 
eyes of the people; and John the Baptist came as the child of the barren 
Elizabeth advanced in years, and the aged priest who had ceased to hope for 
offspring. Our composer was directed not only by these regulation require- 
ments for the production of a notable character, but he had also the full bene- 
fit of a developed angelology such as was contained in the Old Testament 
and elaborated in current thought. Angels are always convenient in such 
narratives. He also possessed the canonical story of the virgin birth. This 
was his starting-point. 

Accordingly the story is wrought out chiefly upon the model of that of 
Samuel, great care being taken to emphasize the purity of Mary in her food, 
surroundings, and occupation." It is hardly necessary to point out the use of 
the canonical New Testament in the account of Joachim’s retreat into the 
desert and his forty days’ fast, or in the blending of the Lucan and Matthzan 
stories in the annunciation to Joachim (§ 4), or in Mary’s visit to the temple 
at the age of three and her utter lack of desire to return home with her par- 
ents ($7). These, together with many other items and the almost literal 
use of Matt., chap. 2, in §§ 11, 12, 13, 21, and 22, prove beyond a doubt 
that the protevangelium is simply a purposeful, though not deeply serious, 
elaboration of the canonical infancy sections ; and it is equally clear that the 
author’s aim is so to reflect upon Mary the miraculous circumstances attrib- 
uted to the birth of Jesus as to give her advent a purity and a glory in keep- 
ing with her exalted position. 

A different conscience from that exhibited in the patristics is at work. 
They, with slight exceptions subsequent to the time of Clement of Alexandria, 
made a strenuous and dogmatic use of the canonical material. Nor did they 
resort to invention even in apologetic and polemic stress. The literary con- 
science of the apocryphal writers, on the contrary, was not satisfied with the 
most advantageous use of the accepted sources, but under false names 
attempted to add to the sources just those elements which would best explain 


4# For the acme of this effort, see the Sahidic fragment, 7exts and Studies, IV, 


2, p.\15. si 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 85 


the religious situation in which it found itself. From such a conscience, con- 
fronted by a practical theological problem, but devoid of the required skill, 
and also destitute of the deep seriousness of the canonical and patristic writ- 
ings, sprang the teaching of the perpetual virginity of Mary. 

The Gospel of Thomas and the History of Joseph the Carpenter differ 
from the Gospel of James and its derivatives in that the former adopt the 
point of view of the Johannine philosophy and find the idea of an incarnation 9 
more in accord with their Docetic purpose. But the Gospel of James is 
practically sufficient to indicate the contribution of the so-called New Testa- 
ment apocrypha to the study of the virgin birth. In a word, they push back 
a step or so farther, and hence wholly past the point of credibility, the 
remarkable features of the canonical infancy stories. 


™49See also Pseudo-Clementina, “Two Epistles Concerning Virginity,” Ep. I, VI 
(VIII, 56, 57), and “ Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena,” chaps. 14, 15 (IX, 209). And for 
spurious material purporting to be ante-Nicene see Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, 
Book V, 16 (VII, 446); VI, 6; VII, 36, 37, 41; VIII, 1; Apocalypse of the Holy Mother of 
God, I (IX, 169), IV, V, XXIII, XXV, XXVI, XXVIII, XXIX; Apocalypse of Paul 
(VIII, 579); Book of John Concerning the Falling-Asleep of Mary (VIII, 587-91); 
Vision of Paul, § 41 (1X, 162) and § 46; Acts of Philip (VIII, 502); Acts and Martyr- 
dom of Andrew (VIII, 512); Martyrdom of Bartholomew (VIII, 554); Gospel of Nico- 
demus, Part II, chap. 12, first Latin version (VIII, 453); Alar Jacob, Homily on Habib 
the Martyr (Syriac), (VIII, 712); Liturgy of James, 6 (VII, 538), 29, 35, 44. 


INDEX. 


Adam, compared with Jesus, 39, 40, 48, 63, 
ai. 

ZEschines, belief of, 73. 

Alexander of Alexandria, 74, 75. 

Ante-Nicene Fathers, treatment of, 17, 18. 

Apelles, belief of, 36. 


Apocrypha, 9; not used, 41; presence of, 
51; influence upon Clement of Alex- 
andria, 52; upon Origen, 57; growing 
favor of, 60, 68, 70, 74; entrance into 
orthodox theology, 76; general treat- 
ment of, 81. 


Apostolic Fathers, silence of, 16f. 


Archelaus, definition of pater, 67; quoted, 
67, 68. 


Aristides, 21; departure from gospels, 
22; quoted, 21. 


Arnobius, practical apologetic of, 69; 
quoted, 69. 

Barbeliotes, Gnostic theory of, 35. 

Barnabas, Epistle of, 17, 18. 

Basilides, christology of, 34, 35, 36, 72. 

Bethlehem, I0, I1, 14. 


Carpocrates, teaching of, 33, 35, 36, 72. 

Celsus, claim of, 53. 

Cerdo, 34, 35, 72. 

Cerinthus, heresy of, 34, 35, 36, 72. 

Church Fathers, reliability of, 80. 

Clement of Alexandria, 51, 52; quoted, 
51. 

Clement of Rome, 17, 18. 

Colarbasus, 72. 

Conrad, theory of, 9. 

Cyprian, 65. 

Didaché, 17, 18. 


Diognetus, Epistle to, 17, 18. 
Docetism, early evidence of, 21. 


Ebionites, 34 f. 
Elchasai, 61. 
Encratites, 35. 


Genealogies, 9, 10. 


Gnosticism, 32, 33, 36, 45, 51, 67, 73, 78. 
Gospels, the four teach virgin birth, 46, 47. 


86 


Harnack, on protevangelium, 81, 82. 
Heracleon, 36, 72. 
Heretics, destitute of sources, 73, 76. 


Hippolytus, 61f.; use of Scripture, 62; of 
apocrypha, 64; significance of, 65; 
quoted, 61-3. 

Huck, Synopsé, 14. 


Ignatian controversy, 18. 
Ignatius, 17 f.; quoted, 19. 
Immanuel, 15. 


Immanuel prophecy, appeal to, 15, 26, 
44, 57- 

Incarnation, 16, 19, 22; in Justin, 30; in 
Novatian, 66; Malchion, 67; Peter, 
74; harmonization with virgin birth, 
77; apocryphal use of, 85. 

Infancy stories, comparison of, 10 f.; Old 
Testament use of, 84. 


Interpretation, 27, 80. 


Irenzeus, polemic of, 31; method of treat- 
ment, 32; reply to Gnosticism, 32; 
appeal to Scripture, 36 ; dogmatic con- 
clusions of, 41, 42; quoted, 32-40. 


James, gospel of = protevangelium, com- 
pared with Matthew and Luke, I2f.; 
grossness of, 14; in Justin Martyr, 29, 
30; in Clement of Alexandria, 51; in 
Origen, 57, 58; estimate of, 81; 
sources of, 84; quoted, 12f.; abstract 
of, 81f. 


Jesus, Davidic descent of, I0, 20, 49; 
dual nature of, not in virgin-birth 
stories, 15, 16, 20; based upon par- 
entage, 20, 21, 32, 37, 43, 44,77, 793 
son of Joseph, 33f.; pre-existent, 33 f.; 
not Joseph’s son, 38; a mediator 
because of virgin birth, 40, 79; purity 
of birth, 58; frequent birth of, 62; not 
born at all, 67. 

Joseph, home of, 10, I1; occupation, 37, 
53- 

Justin Martyr, 22f.; his use of mythology, 
24; of prophecy, 26; final apology of, 
28; summary, 29; sources, 29, 30; 
quoted, 23-9. 


Lactantius, theology of, 70; quoted, 70. 
Logos doctrine dominant, 75, 76. 


INDEX 87 


Luke, gospel of, infancy story compared 
with Matthew, 10; dependence upon 
Mark, 11; correspondence to Matthew, 
14; interpretation of virgin birth, 15, 
16; Marcion’s mutilation of, 39. 


Malchion, 66, 67; quoted, 66. 

Manes, 67. 

Manichzans, 67. 

Manuscript testimony, Io. 

Marcion, belief of, and use of the New 
Testament, 35, 39, 46, 72; Tertullian’s 
reply to, 43. 

Marcus, 72. 


Mary, contrasted with Eve, 23, 39, 47, 48; 
exaltation of, 51, 64,68; Jewish slander 


of, 53, 54; perpetual virginity, 57; 
never Joseph’s wife, 68. 


Matthew, gospel of, infancy story com- 
pared with Luke, 10; dependence upon 
Mark, I1; correspondence to Luke, 
14; interpretation of virgin birth, 15. 

Melito, 31. 

Messiah, Jewish belief as to birth, 24, 27, 
28, 62. 

Method, 9, 17. 

Methodius, typology of, 71; quoted, 71. 

Monoimus, teaching of, 61. 

Mythology, Greek, 24, 28, 55, 56, 69. 


New Testament, silence of, regarding vir- 
gin birth, 16,17; its authority in time of 
Justin Martyr, 27; in time of Irenzus, 
36; Tertullian’s use of, 45. 

Noetus, 61. 


Novatian, 65, 66; quoted, 65. 


Ophites, 35, 72. 
Origen, 52f.; reply to Celsus, 54; scien- 
tific argument of, 55; use of Scripture, 


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57; use of apocrypha, 58; reverence 
of, 59; contribution of, 60; quoted, 
52-60. 

Panthera, story of, 53, 54. 

Patripassionism, 61. 

Peter of Alexandria, 73, 74; quoted, 73, 
74- 

Plato, reputed virgin birth of, 56. 

Polycarp, 17, 18. 

Praxeas, heresy of, 73. 

Ptolemy, 36, 72. 


Resch, theory of, 9. 
Rushbrook, Synopticon, 14. 


Saturninus, theory of, 34, 36, 72. 
Scythianus, 68. 

Secundus, 36, 72. 

Sethians, 35, 61. 

Shepherd of Hermas, 17, 18. 

Simon of Samaria, theology of, 34, 72. 
Son of God, 15, 16. 


Tatian, his appeal to mythology, 30; 
probable belief of, 31, 72; quoted, 30, 
31. 

Terebinthus, pretension of, 68. 

Tertullian, 42 f.; his argument as to 
Christ’s dual nature, 43; defense of his 
humanity, 44; interpretation of, 45, 
46; estimate of the gospels, 47; his 
sources, 50; peculiar use of virgin birth, 
50; quoted, 42-9. 

Theodotus, 73. 

Trypho, his criticism of virgin birth, 23, 
24. 

Valentinians, 34, 72. 

Victorinus, 71 ; summary of heresies, 72, 
73; quoted, 71. 








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